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A SKETCH
OF THE
J
LIFE AND TIMES
AND
SPEECHES
OF
JOSEPH E. BROWN.
BY
HERBERT FIELDER.
SPRINGFIELD, MASS.:
PRESS OF SPRINGFIELD PRIKTING COMPANY,
1883.
.A.
Copyright, 1883.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
1
Introduction, .........
Chapter I. My Contemporaries. 1857, ....
Governor Joseph E. Brown's Early Life, .
Government of Georgia under Joseph E. Brown,
State Geologist and Chemist, ....
Secession of Cotton-Growing States and Organi-
zation of the Confederacy, ....
First Year in the Field, . . . . .
Defence of Georgia by State Forces,
Government of Georgia in Relation to the War,
Governor Brown and the Confederate Military,
Correspondence of Governor Brown and James
A. Seddon, Secretary of War, 1864, .
Correspondence of President Davis and Gov-
ernor Brown upon Conscription,
Correspondence of Governor Brown and A. Ful-
larton, British Consul at Savannah,
Reconstruction of Georgia,
Administration of Governor Bullock,
A Summary of Governor Brown's Character,
Supplement Prepared for the Publishers, Bring-
ing the Narrative of Events to September,
louo, .......
Appendix:
Speeches of Senator Brown : The Mexican War Pensions, 593. — The Edu-
cational Fund, 605.— The Indian Question, 615. — The Funding Bill,
625. — Reply to Senator Mahone of Yirginia, 630. — A Free Ballot and a
Fair Count, 642.— The Silver Bill, 660.— The Mormon Question, 678.—
The Chinese Bill, 690.— The Tariff Commission Bill, 704.— Civil Ser-
vice Reform, 714. — Rights of the Citizens of the late Confederate
State^ to Proceeds of Cotton Seized by U. S. Government, 725. — The
Tariff and the Internal Revenue System, 742. — Unconstitutionality of
the Test Oath, 756.— Our Country, 772.
i'
K
11.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
IX.
X.
XI.
XII.
XIII.
XIV.
XV.
XVI.
25
91
108
158
170
202
243
256
275
318
355
398
410
459
487
495
Errata and Explanations.
Chapter I, page 25, " My Contemporaries," was written
by the author at various times during his professional
life, and contains his opinions and estimates of the men
at the time he wrote.
Page 4, 11th line, after Nathaniel Green Foster, read
" the Madison District."
Page 53, 10th line, "James I. Gresham " should be
" John J. Gresham."
Page 52, 16th line, " Barney " should be " Burney."
Page 53, 4th line from bottom, "H. S. M'Kay" should
be " H. K. McCay."
Page 115, 11th line, "correction" should be "convic-
tion."
Page 156, 20th line, the year " 1875 " should be " 1785."
Page 283, 7th line from bottom, after words "habeas
corpus," insert " generally throughout the realm."
Page 432, 3d line from bottom, " John Pope " should
be "Meade."
Page 456, 11th line from bottom, " Garrett " should be
" Garnett."
INTRODUCTION.
DESCRIPTION OF GEORGIA IN 1880.
This State, in extent of area, geological formation, and
diversity of mineral resources; in abundance and variety
of timber ; in water and water-power ; diversity and fer-
tility of soil ; capabilities of immense and varied vegetable
productions ; in climate, adapted to the comfort and health
of a multitudinous population ; in adaptation to manu-
factures, to rail, river, canal, and ocean carriage and
transportation ; its facilities for the growth as well as
maintenance of a numerous, powerful, great, and happy
population, — in everything except the present possession
of enough of people and money, and aside from all polit-
ical considerations, is an empire within itself.
If she were a separate body, standing on two pillars of
land and water, the Atlantic coast and the " Land of
Flowers " indicative of her varied capabilities, we could
easily point out, to the enquiring beholder, the peculiar
facilities of the belts that form the surface from base to
summit.
At the broad bottom, we have her level low lands,
where the accumulated columns of her rivers move slowly
to the Gulf and Ocean, and where their tributaries are
skirted with green hammocks and dark loam, the region
dotted with open ponds, and those of deposit and thick
growth, the main picture being the green carpet, with
its floral decorations, perfumed by fragrant odors. This
2 INTRODUCTIOK
level belt has its inexhaustible wealth of timber, abounds
Avith self-sustaining cattle, sheep and hogs. The people
are plain, frugally clad, honest, hospitable and brave,
producing support with but little labor and exertion. It
w^ould be difficult to draw a statistical account of the
capabilities of this belt alone, if it Avere only settled
by a population sufficiently dense, permeated by rail-
roads, and spotted over with diversified manufactories —
its cotton, wool, and silk ; its cane and melons ; its grapes
and cereals; its peas, roots, timber, and oils; its animals
of burden and food ; its vegetable and medicinal produc-
tions, and the magnificence of its floral beauty.
Higher up, the broad belt occupied, before their eman-
cipation, in great part by slaves, and their owners and
managers, and since by a population which in some dis-
tricts is composed of a majority of colored free people.
This is the region that, from its early settlement, was in
great part devoted to the growth of cotton ; and from
which, annually, has been brought to market so much of
that leading staple which has swelled the aggregate
exportable value of American products. But, withal, a
vast region not surpassed in the aggregate by any of
equal extent in natural fertility and adaptation to the
majority of agricultural and horticultural products that
are needed for the necessary use, the comfort, and even
luxury of mankind.
Higher still, we have the belt of middle Georgia, a gen-
eral term that describes a section in some parts level, in
others broken and undulating, vast in extent, diversified
in soil, and of capabilities that are immense. Here are
numerous springs, rills, rivulets, branches, and creeks.
The rivers flow rapidly over granite and pebbly beds,
leaping from higher to lower surface, as if to supply
INTRODUCTIOK 3
motive power to machinery prior to man's invention of
the use of condensed steam. Here are the rocks and
gravel, the loam and the clay. Here the cereals impart
to the picture a more golden hue, as they mingle with
the cotton, the roots, the fruits, and vines. This is a land
highly favored by nature, and to it have adhered a pop-
ulation of former slaves, slaveholders, and non-slave-
holders, a people worthy of this heaven-favored country,
in every respect except in numbers.
Still higher, we have the broad belt of upper Georgia,
stretching from the east over the freestone to the west
over the limestone, resembling the middle belt in many
places, in surface, water, and geological formations, with a
still deeper golden hue, from preponderance of cereal
crops. And not very unlike to it in the character,
habits, and modes of life of the people, but -with greatly
diminished mixture of the colored race. This vast re-
gion is more variegated as to fertile and barren lands, but
far exceeds all the rest in abundance and variety of the
mines imbedded beneath its surface.
Thus stands the grand old State, arable, watered, tim-
bered, peopled in every district, with immense capabilities
in the production of nearly all that man needs of food,
raiment, medicine, laden along her surface with vines
and fruits, with her skirts and graceful drapery trimmed
with every variety of flowers, from the gorgeous magno-
lia to the bridal-wreath spirea. She stands in magnifi-
cence peerless among the nations ; but in modesty, as if
a maiden decked and attired for the altar, before their
assembled court. Her wealth is of the mountain chain,
all studded with stones and precious metals. By her
peaks and slopes she makes her obeisance — so genial and
inviting is she to all the civilized world. She bows to
4 INTRODUCTION.
the east to catch the light as it comes on Aurora's
beams; and to the west to bid adieu to the King of Day
and receive the kiss of his last retiring ray ; to the North
Star, and her twinkling wintry comrades ; and to the
Queen of Night, amid her virgin throng of southern
stars ; lofty in her height, magnificent in her propor-
tions, she catches the dews from the clouds ; she bows
lowly in commiseration and sympathy with laboring man,
and sheds her tears to cool his parching fields ; these she
mingles with the floods distilled from the clouds, and the
fountains she sends forth from every undulation of her
bosom, and propels them, in silvery columns, along their
winding ways, over cascades and through deep valleys,
with converging channels and concentrating waves, to
unite with the great waters of Gulf and Ocean.
AREA.
The State extends from thirty-one and a half to thirty-
five degrees of north latitude, having an average length
north and south of three hundred miles, and breadth
east and west of about two hundred miles. It contains
58,000 square miles, being about 37,120,000 acres of
land.
POPULATION.
By the census of 1870 there were 638,926 white, and
595,192 colored, making the aggregate 1,184,109 people.
By the census of 1880 the whites are 816,906, the colored
725,133, making the aggregate 1,542,180.
SUBDIVISIONS.
There are one hundred and thirty-eight counties, vary-
ing in size, shape, population, productions, and wealth.
These are subdivided into militia districts, designed orig-
INTEODUCTIOK 5
inally for the convenience of military organization,
which have also been adopted as jurisdictions for courts
of justices of the peace.
The judicial division of the State is into circuits, form-
ing jurisdictions for the Superior Courts, the highest tri-
bunal of original civil and criminal jurisdiction in the
State, of which there are twenty-one, each having a judge
and solicitor elective by the Legislature.
There are ten political districts, the people of each of
which elect a representative in Congress. And forty-
four senatorial districts, each electing a senator in the
State Legislature, the representatives being elected
by counties.
BOUNDARY.
Commencing on the south-east at Tiger island, at the
mouth of St Mary's river, the State has an ocean
front on the Atlantic north to Tybee island at the mouth
of the Savannah river, along the eastern border of the coun-
ties of Camden, Glynn, Mcintosh, Liberty, Bryan and
Chatham. Thence that river and her eastern tributary,
flowing south-east, divide this state from South Carolina,
to the south line of North Carolina along the eastern
border of the counties of Chatham, Effingham, Burke, Rich-
mond, Columbia, Lincoln, Elbert, Hart, Franklin, Haber-
sham, and Rabun, to the north-east corner. Thence a
dry line west, along the northern border of the counties
of Rabun, Towns, and part of Fannin, adjoining North
Carolina, and thence along the balance of Fannin and
the counties of Murray, Whitfield, Catoosa, Walker and
Dade adjoining Tennessee, to the north-west corner near
the Tennessee river ; thence a dry line south along the
western border of the counties of Dade, Walker, Chat-
6 INTRODUCTION.
tooga, Floyd, Polk, Haralson, Carroll, Heard and Troup,
to the west bank of the Chattahoochee river ; thence south
along that bank and the west border of the counties of
Harris, Muscogee, Chattahoochee, Stewart, Quitman, Clay,
Early, and a part of Decatur, all adjoining Alabama ; and
thence the balance of said county adjoining Florida to
the south-west corner at the confluence of the Flint with
the Chattahoochee river. Thence east a dry line along
the southern border of the counties of Decatur, Thomas,
Brooks, Loundes, Echols and Clynch to the St. Mary's
river ; thence along the irregular course of that stream on
the counties of Charlton and Camden, to the Atlantic
ocean, — all adjoining Florida.
RIVERS.
The Savannah is navigable for steamers from the At-
lantic to Augusta; and far above that city for flat boats.
The Chattahoochee, from its termination in the Appalachi-
cola in Florida to the rapids at the city of Columbus.
The Altamaha, from the Atlantic to its beorinnino^ at the
7 DO
confluence of Ocmulgee and Oconee : the former, to
Hawkinsville, and the latter, to the |)ridge of the Central
Railroad in Washington. The St Mary's, Satilla, and
Ogeechee, for less distances and smaller vessels, as are the
Ohoopee and Ocholochnee.
The streams flowing northward across the Tennessee
line, the Hiwassee, Notley, Tocoa and Chickamauga riv-
ers, are not navigable in this State. The Oostenaula is
navigable for small boats about one hundred miles above
the city of Rome, the point of its confluence with the
Eowah, forming the Coosa, which, in its flow to Alabama,
is navigable about forty miles in this State.
Beside those mentioned, the State is permeated in all
' IKTRODUCTION. 7
parts by smaller rivers, large and small creeks and their
tributary branches and brooks, affording pure water in
abundance for all the uses of man and the lower animals.
Among the rivers not already named, there are in the
upper part of the State among the mountains, Tallulah,
Chestatee, Ellijay, Coosawattee and Connasauga: south
of the mountains in ilpper Georgia, Broad and Little riv-
ers tributary to the Savannah and Talapoosa flowing into
Alabama. In middle Georgia, Ulcofauhatchee, called Al-
cova, South and Yellow rivers tributary to Ocmulgee,
Appalachee and Little rivers tributary to Oconee, and, in
the southern part of the State, Little AUapaha, Suwa-
nee, and Canouchee rivers.
WATER POWER.
These streams, passing from higher to lower lands,
abound with falls, many of them beautiful, and a few that
are of striking grandeur and awe. The water powers
furnished are multitudinous, and diversified by the heights
and by the differences in volume of water — varying from
one horse to twenty thousand horse power.
ALTITUDE AND SURFACE.
The average elevation of the State above the level of
the sea is about 650 feet. The eastern portion of north
Georgia is about 1,500 feet having mountain chains 3,000
feet, with peaks nearly 5,000 feet high. The western
part of the same belt is about 750 feet, with mountain
chains 2,000 feet high, some of which are fertile, and are
generally interspersed with extensive and fertile, as well
as beautiful valleys, while the eastern is more generally
hilly, with fewer valleys.
The belt of middle Georgia above the points of river
8 INTHODUCTION.
0
navigation is generally from 500 to 1,000 feet, the aver-
age altitude being about 750 feet. This belt has no
mountains, except perhaps the majestic Stone Mountain
towering up in the midst of a comparatively level section.
It has no extended plains or valleys, but is generally un-
dulating, and in some places quite broken and hilly. The
lower belt, being by far the largest, has an altitude of
from 200 to 300 feet. It is generally level, though in
some places exceedingly uneven and broken by steep,
low hills and narrow valleys and ravines. The streams
flow more slowly, have scarcely any high lands and hills
skirting them, as in the up countrj^, and more extensive
swamps and low marshes. And the face of the country,
instead of being varied as in the northern part by moun-
tains, is interspersed often with small ponds, some of them
open and clear, others surrounded by dense undergrowth :
and by beautiful lakes, many of them transparent.
The State has three general slopes subdivided by many
small ones. The first and major one is the Atlantic,
south-east of the Appalachian chain of mountains, and the
Chattahoochee ridges dividing it north-east to south-west,
above the middle. The next in size, the Gulf slope, south
of that chain and west of the Ridges. The other, the
Tennessee slope, north of those mountains. All are indi-
cated by the rise and flow of the w^ater courses, and are
marked by a diversity of climate, soil, timber, and mineral
deposits.
CLIMATE.
The southern half of the State is marked by equanimity :
mildness in winter, and regular warm days and nights in
summer. The northern, by greater diversity and change
of temperature ; the winters are colder and have more
sudden and extreme changes from mild to severe cold.
INTEODUCTION. 9
The summer is delightful for the cool and bracing atmos-
phere at night, and, in the higher portions, freedom from
oppressive heat by day. The temperature varies much
also between the mountains and valleys. The whole
northern belt abounds in springs so cold that water needs
no ice to adapt it to use for drinking.
SOIL, PRODUCTIONS AND HEALTH.
The tide-water lands on the south-east are devoted to
rice, and furnish most of the product of that grain which
the State sends to market. It is, however, grown mostly
for home consumption, to a considerable extent on the
low lands of the interior.
The vast area of lower Georgia, generally sparse of
population, produces corn, oats, barley rye, rice (wet or
dry culture), peas, ground peas, turnips, potatoes, sugar-
cane, cotton, tobacco, vegetables, fruits, berries, and mel-
ons. The soil is light, soft and of easy cultivation. Most
of the habitations are of sparse dimensions, made of rough
timber from adjacent forests, and built at but trifling
expense. The people away from the streams, swamps,
marshes, and hammocks are as free from disease -as those
of any part of the continent ; but in such localities they
are more or less exposed to malarial diseases. The native
grasses afford permanent pasturage to sustain well in sum-
mer, but poorly in W'inter, cattle and sheep. Hence beef
and wool enter largely into home consumption and furnish
profitable commerce to many of the people.
The middle belt of rolling and sometimes hilly surface
is of red gray, and in some places mulatto soil, all with
clay foundation ; and, except sugar-cane, is productive of
all the crops mentioned in the low countr}'", and is well
adapted also to wheat. In fact, nearly all of the market
10 INTRODUCTION.
crops of the continent will grow here, though all are not
cultivated.
The population is more dense than in lower Georgia,
though sparse here compared with many other States of
the Union. The dwellings, not universally, but generally,
are more commodious and comfortable. The w^hite peo-
ple are healthful, active, industrious, and generally intelli-
gent. There is a larger population of colored people than
in the sparsely settled portions of lower Georgia.
The same description of peoples applies to the w^ealthier
and more densely populated neighborhoods of the low
country ; and to the northern belt, where similar crops
are grow^n with less proportion of cotton and colored peo-
ple, as to the major part of it, with the addition of grasses,
including clover for hay ; and where the soil is better
adapted for the growth of tobacco, not extensively grown
in any part of the State.
TIMBER.
The extensive southern belt abounds with pine, which
is of the finest quality and inexhaustible quantity. The
lakes, many of the ponds, and the water courses are often
skirted with live oak, and other species of oak, and with
evergreen trees in great variety. These tracts, not ex-
tensive in width, are called hammocks ; and where the
land is so low as to retain the water amid the trees and
undergrowth they are called swamps, some of w^hich are
dense and extensive.
The timber of middle and many parts of upper Georgia
was extensively destroyed for farming purposes ; but still
in many places the supply is abundant. The native for-
ests were set with pine in many places mixed with oak in
every variety, dogwood, hickory, poplar, chestnut, and
INTRODUCTION-. 11
every variety of gum, cedar, spruce pine, walnut, ash,
elm, black-jack, and sycamore ; and in many localities the
pine and other growths mentioned are wanting The
timber of Georgia seems to be an inexhaustible source of
wealth.
METALS AND MINERALS.
Granite and limestone are so extensive as to be inex-
haustible in different parts of the State, while they are
not found in others. The variety is extensive of rocks
and stones, in color, hardness, durability and uses to which
they may be applied, to be found in different localities,
includino; marble of several tirades and kinds. In some
localities are inexhaustible marl beds, and in others quar-
ries of slate of the finest quality. Gold is extensively dis-
tributed across the upper part of the State, north-east and
south-west ; and valuable mines of copper have been dis-
covered in many places in the same region. There are
numerous other mineral deposits of great value and im-
portance, as well as mineral and medicinal waters in limit-
less variety and abundant quantity.
But the two deposits of value, and apparently the most
profuse from the Creator, are iron and coal. It may be
said that, so far as relates to soil, climate, water, adapta-
tion to the growth of all crops, timber, and mineral de-
posits, no part of the globe is better fitted than the
State of Georgia, if shut out from all the world, to main-
tain a great population for an indefinite period, provided
there were in operation manufactories sufficient to con-
vert all her raw material into commodities for use.
Upon these natural advantages a reasonable degree of
improvement has already been made, placing this State
far in advance of some, but still leaving her much to ac-
complish hereafter in order to be abreast with many other
12 INTRODUCTIOK
countries and States of the Union. Among those improve-
ments we refer to our
SYSTEM OF RAILROADS.
The following railroads are in operation :
From Savannah to Isle of Hope, 9 miles ; thence to Mont-
gomery, 4 miles.
From Savannah to Bainbridge 237 miles; on this line,
branch to Live Oak, Florida, by Atlantic and Gulf
Boad, in this State,30 miles; branch from Thomasville
by South Georgia and Florida Railroad to Albany, 60
miles.
From Savannah to Atlanta, the Central Railroad, via Ma-
con, 295 miles ; on this line, branch from Millen to
Augusta, 53 miles ; from Tennille to Sandersville, 3
miles; from Gordon to Eatonton, 39 miles; Barnes-
ville to Thomaston, 16 miles ; Griffin to Carrollton, 60
miles.
From Macon to Eufaula, on west bank of Chattahoochee,
in Alabama, the Southwestern Railroad, 140 miles ;
on this line, from Fort Valley to Perry, 1 1 miles ;
Fort Valley to Columbus, 71 miles; Smithville via
Albany to Arlington, 60 miles ; Cuthbert to Fort
Gaines, 22 miles.
From Brunswick to Macon, Macon and Brunswick Rail-
road, 186 miles; on this line, branch from Eastman
to Ocmulgee River, Cochran to Hawkinsville 10 miles.
From Brunswick to Albany, Brunswick and Albany Rail-
road, 172 miles.
From Augusta to Atlanta, Georgia Railroad, 171 miles;
on this line, branches Barnett to Washington, 18
miles ; Union Point to Athens, 39 miles ; Carnac to
Macon, Macon and Augusta Railroad, 74 miles.
INTRODUCTION. 13
From Columbus to Kingston, North and South Railroad,
20 miles.
From Atlanta to West Point, Atlanta and West Point
Railroad, 87 miles.
From Atlanta to Charlotte, N. C, Atlanta and Richmond
Air Line Railroad, in this State, 100 miles; on this
line from Lula to Athens, North-Eastern Railroad,
40 miles; branch from Tocoa City to Elberton, 5L
miles.
From Atlanta to Chattanooga, Tennessee, Western and
Atlantic Railroad, 138 miles.
From Marietta to Canton, narrow gauge, 24 miles.
From Cartersville to Cedar Town, narrow gauge, 35 miles.
From Kingston to Rome, 20 miles.
From Dalton to Bristol, East Tennessee Railroad, in this
State, 18 miles.
From Dalton to Selma, Alabama, via Rome in this State,
57 miles; by Chattanooga and Alabama Railroad,
Chattanooga to Selma, in this State, 25 miles.
The aggregate of these roads is 2,440 miles. The main
lines mentioned connect with other lines beyond the State
extending to all parts of the country, affording to the
people markets within practicable distances from their
homes and places of business and industry.
TELEGRAPH LINES
Are in operation along the lines of most of the rail-
roads above described.
CITIES AND TOWNS.
Since the commencement and completion of the rail-
roads of the State, the number, prosperity and growth of
towns and cities have greatly increased. These are
14 INTRODUCTION.
marts of commerce, sites of churches of different orders ;
common and high schools for both races and sexes, and
some of them have flourishing colleges. They are gen-
erally healthful, and the people happy and prosperous.
Many of them are centers of intelligence, refinement,
moral and social worth, as well as Christianity.
The principal cities are Savannah, situate on the
Savannah river, about twenty miles from its mouth, with
a population of 33,248.
Augusta, at the head of steamboat navigation on the
same stream, with a population of 22,301.
Macon, on the Ocmulgee river, in the central part of
the ^tate, with a population of 14,000 within the city,
and 11,000 in suburban villages and settlements, making
25,000.
Columbus, at the head of steamboat navigation on Chat-
tahoochee river. Population within city 10,137, and
suburban villages 8,000 : total 18,137. Atlanta made
site of State Capital in 1868, 37,825 : Athens on Oconee
river, north-east part of State, site of University of
Georgia, 8,052. Rome at confluence of Etowah and
Oostenaula rivers.
Brunswick on the Atlantic coast, 2,900; Darien, 1,544.
On Western and Atlantic railroad, Marietta, 2,229 ; Carters-
ville, 2,037; Dalton 2,516. On Air Line railroad, Gaines-
ville, 2,450. On Georgia railroad, Washington, 2,203;
Greensboro', 1,600; Madison, 2,500 ; Covington, 1,470;
Conyers, 1,400 ; Social Circle, 800 ; Stone Mountain,
1,800. On Macon and Augusta railroad, Milledgeville,
3,998 ; Sparta, 900. On Central railroad, Sandersville,
1,322; Eatonton, 1,371; Waynesboro, 1,015; Forsyth,
2,000; Barnesville, 1,983; Griffin, 4,500; Thomaston,
900. On Macon and Brunswick railroad, Hawkinsville,
INTRODUCTION. 15
2,100 ; Eastman, on Albany and Gulf railroad, 500 ; Jessup,
600; Blackshear, 778; Valdosta 1,516; Quitman, 1,525
Thomasville, 2,556 ; Bainbridge at terminus on Flint river
1,444 ; on Southwestern and branches. Fort valley, 1,278
Perry, 709 ; Oglethorpe, 442 ; Americus, 4,800 ; Albany
3,000; Dawson, 1,684; Cuthbert, 2,115; Fort Gaines
1,100. On Atlanta and West Point railroad, Fairburn
663; Newnan, 3,000 ; La Grange, 2,375; West Point
1,972 ; Camilla on South Georgia and Florida railroad, 700
Carrollton at terminus of North Alabama railroad, 956
Cedar Town at terminus of Cherokee Narrow^ Guage
1,635; Cave Spring on Rome and Selma railroad, 850
Talbotton, 1,008 ; Oxford, site of Emory college, 1,000.
There are numerous other railroad towns, county sites
and villages, generally smaller than those mentioned.
MANUFACTORIES.
The manufacture of cotton, the principal market prod-
uct, converting the raw material into fabrics, w^as begun
in the vicinity of Athens, utilizing the water powder of
the Oconee river, upwards of fifty years ago. The success-
ful experiments in Clark county were followed by similar
enterprises in Green, Richmond, Morgan, New^ton, Bald-
win, Cobb, Hancock, Putnam, Troup, Chattanooga, Upson,
Warren, Chatham, Bibb, Decatur, Early, Harris, Muscogee;
the most extensive are at Augusta, Columbus, and Ros-
well in Cobb county. They increased in number and
extent, and now there are in the State thirty-seven cot-
ton and fourteen wool factories.
The progress of iron manufacture has been more
rapid, having begun at a much later period. There are
twenty-eight manufactories and 'foundries in North-west-
ern Georgia, some of them very extensive, and in some
16 IKTRODUCTIOK
instances supplied by coke of the best quality, produced
from the native coal. There are seven paper factories,
flour and corn mills in endless variety in every part
of the State, and a large number of mills for pounding
rocks that contain the precious metal. Numerous dis-
tilleries of liquors and of turpentine, and several extensive
manufactories of commercial manures ; others for locomo-
tives and cars ; numerous establishments for making wag-
ons, carriages, agricultural implements, boots, shoes, and
building material ; doors, windows, sash, blinds, brick and
roofing ; with mills in great abundance for cutting lumber
from the forest. At Columbus the Chattahoochee river is
used to move the immense machinery. At Augusta, the
water of the Savannah river is utilized by a canal nine
miles long, which is about one hundred and fifty feet wide,
with a depth of eleven feet of water ; and through this,
the flat boats for which the river is navigable one hundred
miles above Augusta avoid the shoals above, and find easy
access to the city.
^ RELIGION AND CHURCHES.
The Protestant Christians are by far the most numer-
ous professors of religion, but are divided into sects or
denominations, the principal and most numerous of which
are the Baptist, Methodist and Presbyterian, and each
of these have subdivisions.
The Baptists have a membership of about 112,000
whites and 98,000 colored, with 2,600 church organiza-
tions and edifices. They have an organization co-exten-
sive with the State called a convention, and one hundred
and twenty smaller ecclesiastical divisions of advisory
bodies called associations.
Tiie Methodists have a membership of about 100,000
I
INTRODUCTIOK 17
whites and 70,000 colored. The principal division of
which, the Methodist Episcopal Church South, has two
jurisdictions called Annual Conferences, which are di-
vided into districts, circuits, missions and stations. Other
Methodist organizations have similar subordinate juris-
dictions.
The Presbyterians have a membership of about 9,000
whites and 1,000 blacks. They have a State jurisdiction
called a synod, which is subdivided into presbyteries.
The colored memberships are generally in separate
organizations from the whites of the same sects, a dis-
tinction which is still more strictly preserved in all the
schools in the State, and is preferred by both races.
There are a few churches of Congregationalists, Lu-
therans, Unitarians, and Universalists.
The Christian Church has about fifty church organ-
izations and edifices, with upwards of 5,000 member-
ship.
The Protestant Episcopal Church has a membership of
about 4,500, with about thirty churches. The aggregate
Christian membership of the State is about 400,000 souls.
The Israelites have numerous local organizations that
are without edifices or stated worship, but have six syna-
gogues and a membership of about 5,000.
The styles of the church edifices vary much, and conform
to the situations and circumstances of the people where
they are located. There are comparatively few elegant
buildings in the country, away from the towns and cities.
Many of them are neat and comfortable, but in many
places they are small, of cheap and rude structure, and
wanting in comfort as well as ornament ; and such is the
case with many in the cities, towns and villages. But a
large proportion of those in the cities and towns are
18 INTKODUCTION.
highly creditable, and many of them handsome. There
are a few that for this country are splendid edifices.
Pulpit eloquence and church music are largely culti-
vated, and in many places both have attained a high
standard of excellence.
CEMETERIES.
In nothing has the civilization of the State shown
more evidence of advancement than the improvements
that have been made in latter years of the resting-places
of the dead. The primitive custom of burying in the
church-yards in town and country, is in many places
adhered to, but generally with increased care of the
graves. But, in most of the towns and in all the cities,
separate places are set apart for public cemeteries. Many
of these, by the natural growth and transplanted ever-
green trees, shrubbery, and flowers, with the variegated
structures over and around the dead, are made lovely
and beautiful. At the wealthy and populous cities of
Augusta, Savannah, Macon, Atlanta, Columbus, Rome,
Athens, they are strikingly beautiful, while the cemeteries
in many of the larger towns are attractive ornaments.
The Confederate and State soldiers who died under cir-
cumstances that enabled their friends to inter them, or in
the numerous hospitals located in the State, are distribu-
ted in the cemeteries and church-yards and private grave-
yards all over the State. Those buried on and near
battle-fields have generally been collected in Confederate
cemeteries at Resaca, Marietta and Atlanta.
The Federal soldiers who died in our prisons and hospi-
tals, and on the battle fields in the State, who were not
carried to other States, have generally been collected
in national cemeteries at Andersonville and Marietta.
INTRODUCTION. 19
PUBLIC CHARITY.
In many of the counties of the interior of the State,
provision is made by the erection of poor-houses, estab-
lishment of poor-farms, or by disbursing the funds col-
lected by taxation through the county officers to support
the few really indigent people. The number found in
actual want and unable to subsist without public aid is
small in every part of the State.
• The old cities, particularly Savannah, have charitable
institutions, many of which are under the auspices of
voluntary associations. In many places the Protestant
as well as the Catholic churches have voluntary and
relief societies. Suffering from destitution and want,
and aside from disease, is of rare occurrence in town or
county.
There are three classes of unfortunates for which the
State has made liberal appropriations, and established
near Milledgeville an asylum for the treatment and care
of lunatics, at Macon an academy for the education of
the blind, and at Cave Spring an institution for the edu-
cation of deaf mutes, all under successful operation for
many years, and dispensing, in large measure, the bless-
ings designed by the State.
Destitute orphans have not shared the State's liberal-
ity, but those of the Catholic people have long been pro-
vided for by an asylum located at Savannah. The two
Georgia conferences of Methodists have each established
an orphans' home without reference to the religious faith
of their parents. The north Georgia, near Decatur, and
the south Georgia conference, near Macon. Both are doing
well, but as yet are of limited capacity and accommoda-
tions.
X
20 INTRODUCTIOK
SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES.
There are upward of 160,000 pupils, large and small,
tanglit weekly in Sunday-schools, which are almost
entirely under the care and control of the different
churches. They come from all grades and classes of peo-
ple, and represent every variety of wealth and poverty,
intelligence and ignorance among the growing generation,
upon all of whom the beneficial effects, in mind and
morals, and often in religion, are perceived. Sabbath-
school system is on the increase. The methods of popu-
lar education, aside from that of Sunday-schools, have
undergone important changes within the last thirty years.
There is a much larger proportion of people taught let-
ters. The proportion of collegiate over academic instruc-
tion in males and females has greatly increased. The
poor-school system, which by taxation and otherwise dis-
pensed limited benefits to children classified as poor, and
which classification rendered the system to an extent
unpopular, has for the last twelve years been superseded
by a system of common schools open to all children of
given ages, and of both races, without regard to pecuniary
circumstances. Under the former system the main part
of the education of children and youths was paid for by
parents and guardians. And such is, to a great extent,
still true.
The State constitution, which requires separate schools
for the white and colored races, limits the system to the
elementary branches of an English education. Tlie State's
appropriation of $300,000 annually, alone is sufficient to
keep the children taught, from 180,000 to 190,000, in the
schools but a short period of the year, and necessarily
in many instances under very inferior and often unfaith-
INTRODUCTION. 21
ful instructors. Still there is some degree of elementary
progress toward the training of mind flowing from the
system. And its benefits are enlarged in every locality
where local appropriations by counties or cities are made,
and in proportion to the extent of such supplement of
the State school fund.
Still the system generally over the State does not meet
the demands of popular education, and schools of all
grades are maintained by the people as formerly. All
the towns and villages maintain good schools for the
whites, and many of them also for the blacks, the expenses
of which are paid by the patrons and employers. But
there are fewer country schools than formerly ; and a
large proportion of those seeking even academic education
who reside on farms, distant from the towns, are required
to incur the expense of boarding in addition to tuition.
In addition to the numerous academies, male and
female and mixed, and of the respective races separate
from each other, there are numerous chartered colleges,
most of them in successful operation. Georgia was the
first State in the world to charter and put in operation a
college for the graduation of females. The Southern
female college was chartered at Macon in 1836, and after-
wards changed to Wesleyan female college. This exam-
ple has been followed by all the States, and by numerous
like charters and institutions established under them in
this State. But this, the oldest, is the most extensive in
appointments for varied instruction, and has much the
largest patronage of any similar school in the state. But
many of the others have ample faculty, buildings, and
arrangements for high grade of education, and have large
patronage.
The Georgia female college, and Madison female col-
22 INTKODUCTIOK
lege are located at Madison ; the Southern female college
and La Grange female college, at La Grange ; the South-
ern Masonic female college, at Covington ; Furlovv Masonic
female college, at Americus ; Andrew female college, at
Cuthbert ; Young female college, at Thomasville ; Monroe
female college, at Forsyth ; Houston female college at
Perry; Lucy Cobb female college at Athens; College
Temple (female college), at Newnan ; Columbus female
college, at Columbus ; Le Vert female college, at Talbot-
ton ; West Point female college, at West Point ; Conyers
female college, at Conyers ; Gainesville female college, at
Gainesville ; Cherokee Baptist female college, and Rome
female college, at Rome ; Dal ton female college, at Dal-
ton ; Griffin female college, at Griffin ; Georgia Baptist
seminary, at Gainesville. Gordon institute is a flour-
ishing college for males and females located at Barnes-
ville.
The University of Georgia, formerly Franklin college,
the oldest male college in the state, located at Athens ;
Mercer university, located first at Penfield, Green county,
and afterwards at Macon ; Oxford, located at Oxford,
Newton county ; Bowden college, located at Bowden,
Carroll county ; and Pio-Nino, located near Macon, are
the five male colleges for the white race. The Atlanta
university, located at Atlanta, is a flourishing college for
the males and females of the colored race. The Georgia
medical college at Augusta, the Atlanta medical college at
Atlanta, and the Savannah medical college at Savannah
are popular institutions for the graduation of physicians.
The Lumpkin law school, connected with the university
of Georgia for the graduation of attorneys-at-law.
There are in addition to these, several commercial and
business colleges, and branch colleges of the University
INTRODUCTION. 23
of Georgia at Dalilonega, Milledgeville, Thomasville and
Cuthbert.
PRINTING AND PUBLICATIONS.
There are fourteen daily newspapers. Two in each of
the cities of Savannah, Augusta, Macon, Columbus,
Griffin and Atlanta ; one in Rome, and one in Albany ;
and one hundred and twenty weekly papers, varying
largely in size as well as patronage, distributed over the
state, in eighty-five of the larger towns, cities, and villages.
They are in matter and aims diversified and miscellane-
ous, most of them more or less political ; some devoted
mainly to religion, some to agriculture, others, literary.
But all devoted to progress and improvement, and as a
system constitute one of the most efficient, extensive,
and cheap methods of popular education. Most of them
have job offices connected with them, which make print-
ing, aside from publication, a lucrative business in many
places. There are publishing houses in Savannah, Macon,
and Atlanta, and in each a medical journal.
SOCIETIES.
The agriculturists have a State agricultural society
composed of representatives of the numerous county
societies, holding semi-annual conventions in different
sections of the State. There is also a State horticultural
society, and a central organization composed of represen-
tatives of local societies of the Patrons of Husbandry,
called the State Grange. The ritual of this order is secret.
There are numerous local literary societies in addition to
the Georgia Historical Society located at Savannah.
The social and benevolent orders are numerous, having
local societies and state organizations, whose existence
24 INTRODUCTION.
and aims are public, but having secret rituals and exclu-
sive meetings. Principal among them are Masons, Odd
Fellows, Good Templars, Sons of Malta, Knights of Honor,
and Knights of Pythias, having numerous local lodges or
societies, representatives of which constitute the Grand
or State Lodges. There are also State associations of the
press, of teachers, and of physicians, having annual meet-
ings. The North Georgia Fair and Stock Association is
located at Atlanta, and a State fair is held annually, under
the auspices of the State agricultural society, alternately
at Macon and Atlanta. Besides there are many fair
grounds well improved and extensively patronized under
societies and associations in every part of the State, loca-
ted at the central towns. There is also a State horticul-
tural society.
CHAPTER I.
My Contemporaries. — 1857.
Georgia, the state of mj nativity and ancestry, is great
in physical resources of wealth, and in capabilities of de-
velopment and improvement in mind and morals ; and
therefore, in the means of rearing and maintaining a popu-
lation, great in number and power ; and deserves more
prominence and distinction than she has, for the high
grade of true merit she has already reached in her public
oflicers, and men of leading minds in science, literature,
the church, and learned professions of law and physic.
The deplorable want of tangible and convenient historic
description and record is a crying evil at this period when
I, one of her humble citizens, reach the period of observa-
tion and meditation upon men and things around me.
Hence, I begin, in this crude method, to lay up in store
my own conclusions of the men among whom, and of the
times in which, I live.
The literature of this, as of every past age, must in
great part be the product of private fortune, prompted
and carried on at the behest of individual ambition and
by individual enterprise. Literary persons, who have no
exchequer except what the world returns for their valua-
ble contributions, live and die poor as to all that money
can purchase. The abundance of luxury and ease which
gold can, and usually does, provide for its owners is not
favorable to the toil and labor that a pure and exalted
literature requires. The hope of their comforts may stimu-
late the pursuit, but their possession supplants the desire
26 MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857.
for purely intellectual pleasures. I have, therefore, rea-
son to rejoice in the possession of at least one of the pre-
requisites to literary success — a want of surplus money —
but prize as much a sufficient worldly estate to maintain
my personal independence, which is essential to truth and
fairness.
The grade and power of mind, as well as the passions,
emotions, tastes and sensibilities of authors, in a great
degree, prompt, mould and modify the literature of the
times in which they write, causing it to brighten and
sparkle under the magic touch of genius, or to descend
into barrenness under dull and venal thinkers and writers.
It softens by the recurring emotions of charity and philan-
thropy, and becomes caustic and pungent when prompted
or guided by malice, envy, misanthropy, or ambition dis-
appointed from any cause.
I have lived thirty years — long enough to have high
hopes, but fortunately not enough to poison my pen by
the asperities consequent on the envy of my few disap-
pointments— yet, nevertheless, have witnessed far more
of selfishness among men of education and cultivation,
not prompted by poverty or want, than I formerly sup-
posed could possibly exist among the men who are leaders
in the churches, in the professions, in social and political
circles and among those holding public offices.
Some of the contemporaries of whom I write have
already died ; some are old, have performed life's public
task and folded the drapery of its honors and rewards
around them and retired to private life to await the sum-
mons for exit from time ; some are in the midst of full
harvest labor of what they have sown in youth and early
manhood ; others are laboring in the early field — the vir-
gin soil of life — with minds and hearts full-strung to the
MY CONTEMPORAKIES.— 1857. 27
work before them. It is of my seniors in age and merit
that I write, and will doubtless omit many of equal merit
with those who are mentioned by name. Georgia is great
in area as well as men, and I do not profess to know all
who are distinguished or deserve to be.
There is probably no standard more difficult to be well
understooxl, much less to be fully and satisfactorily de-
scribed, than that of man's greatness. It has been writ-
ten and spoken of, represented in marble and on canvas.
It has deluged the reading world with words, figures and
tropes,, with triumphs and tragedies, until w^e are left in
uncertainty and doubt, not to say ignorance, of what it is
or has been in any age of the world. We have liberty to
erect ideal statures of strength, power and beauty, and to
compare men, alive and dead, with those idealities. We
may describe actions we regard as grand and momentous,
and pronounce judgment of greatness upon the actors and
authors; but others, viewing the transactions with different
understanding, and with different shades of the light of
truth, may regard the actions unimportant, and the
achievements of men, made notorious by them, the results
of chance and of accidental circumstances.
No matter what endowments any given man may have
had by nature, or what education and training he may
undergo, no meed of greatness will ever be awarded to
him by mankind until he is placed in such position, and
at such period, and under such emergencies as cause great
events to transpire, or great results to flow from his ac-
tions, either in reality or in the opinion of those who are
interested in or affected by those events or results. It
often transpires that greatness is attributed to a leader or
a projector on one side when, in truth, success is the result
of weakness and want of capacity on the part of the op-
28 MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857.
posing parties or forces. The reputation for greatness
often arises to individuals for the success of phms and
movements which result from and are necessary sequences
of appliances and surroundings; and not unfrequently the
thinking powers, knowledge, and skill of subalterns are
attributed to him who fortunately is the head and leader
at the time.
On the other hand, men in place and powder are often
censured for failures which result from circumstances be-
yond the control of any one man or mind. They are con-
demned for not doing what is not in the power of man to
do with the aid and support at command. Events and
circumstances have often summoned men who held power
and responsible positions to the discharge of duties for
which they were not qualified ; and men of great capaci-
ties have lived and died without distinction for want of
position and power and great emergencies to call forth
their efforts.
But one man ever achieved what Alexander did ; and
but one man ever held at the outset of his career such
power in the face of only such opposition as Philip left
to his son. There was never but one Napoleon Bonaparte,
but also never but one Republican France struggling
against the domination of the monarchies of Europe.
There w\as never but one Lord Nelson, and never but one
opportunity to make another that could have immortal-
ized genius as the commander of the British navies was
immortalized. England may subsist a thousand years and
rear a thousand men every w^ay his equal in military skill
and power before she will have the opportunity to glorify
another as Wellington was glorified. Virginia may propa-
gate her crop of men of the blood of Randolph and Lee,
and of Jefferson and Washington, for centuries to come,
MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857. 29
and never present another Father of his Country, or
Author of The Deckration of Independence.
The three great statesmen coming from the East, the
West and the South — all of whom have now gone to their
long homes — Webster, Clay, and Calhoun, unrivalled in the
estimate placed on them by the American people, may
have now living many equals in all the essential elements
of true greatness who have no field in which to operate,
and no emergency of circumstances to call them out and
to develop their powers of thought and of speech ; who,
when they die, will pass quietly into unmarked graves
and leave no biographers to portray their merits.
Greece had but one Demosthenes ; but, in all her length-
ened and unrivalled career of glory in the arts of peace
and war, she perhaps had no period or situation that could
have so distinguished another. Rome had but one Cicero,
and but one Golden Age to gild his fame to the cycles
of hoary Time.
The splendors of Raphael and Angelo dazzle the world
in their own and following ages ; but it is probable that
at no stage of civilization would the taste and passion of
Italy, or any other country, for the art that so immortal-
ized them, have crowned even their equals, if they had
been found, with wreaths of glory so bright and so en-
during.
The lessons taught in profane and sacred history, in the
display of notably vicious men, are full of instruction on
human meanness and depravity. Historic development
of forbidding circumstances, and with worldly power and
prominence to render crime illustrious, find their coun-
terparts in a thousand fdrms in every country and age,
without their attending importance to make notorious and
perpetuate them.
30 MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857.
There was only one Job, subjected to the extreme trials
that exhaust human patience without yielding, whose life
is reported in the Divine Oracles; but millions have died
unheralded who exemplified his virtues. There was only
one Judas who ever had the opportunity to betray the
most priceless of all trusts — the Saviour of the world. But
the earth has' since been cursed by millions ready to be-
tray, for no higher reward than Judas got, every truth
and virtue that Christ came to inculcate and establish.
It is by comparison that we may approximate the true
standard and grade of individuals. We compare stars with
stars in order to classify them and determine their magni-
tude. This is to the astronomer a practical undertaking, be-
cause the stars change not ; nor do the circumstances under
which they are seen expand or diminish them. But men
in different situations at the same time, and in the same
country, and men of different countries and ages have to
be seen in the changing light of their peculiar situations,
and of circumstances that surround them, in order to form
any just opinion of their capacities for great actions and
achievements. Every country, and every age, has a his-
tory written or a tradition received in lieu of historic rec-
ord. Providence has so graded gifts to man, and so ap-
portioned them among the countries and the succeeding
ages, that no period or clime is bereft of men so endowed
or surrounded as to have attracted the attention of their
contemporaries ; some for distinguishing virtues, and oth-
ers for notable vices, but of acknowledged "genius or
mental power.
America, from the time of her earliest settlements,
through the stages of rapid progress and development, has
shared very largely in the munificence of the Creator,
both in mind and heart. The circumstances have been
MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857. 31
favorable to the production, growth, development and
display of men of talents and of genius, though not often
on a large scale. She has been fruitful of men of virtue and
of vice. She has been also, in a marked degree, self-reli-
ant; cultivated the spirit of national, political and social
independence; been proud and exultant, as well as con-
scious of envy, on account of all she has achieved ; and by
ho means illiberal in adulation and praise of her men of
merit.
Georgia, one of the old thirteen colonies that became
States, shared the spirit of liberty and of revolution ;
with her sparse population and limited resources, contrib-
uted to the extent of her capacities in all the labors and
trials and dangers of the war that ended in American po-
litical and civil independence. She was in sympathy and
accord with all the republican ideas that gave shape and
form and limitation to the united government of revolted
and independent sovereign States. She felt the common
danger, had a common treasure in the national freedom
achieved, in the principles of political equality and of self-
government, in all that is established and secured in the
Federal Constitution, to the Government, to the respect-
ive States, and to the people at large. Hence her public
men were intensely interested and active in the move-
ments of the General Government, as the action of Con-
gress and the executive affected or tended to affect this
State ; and in all the issues which g^ew out of national
legislation and administration, and developed the antago-
nistic parties in the Union.
The public men of the period following that of the Revo-
lution and the early administrations have passed off the
stage of action ; and with them have been buried the is-
sues upon measures of policy and of administration of that
32 MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857.
period ; and place has been given to other issues and
other men to divide and contend about them. Success
and defeat have chased each other in the ebbs and flows
of the tides of passion and prejudice; of intelligence and
ignorance ; the popularity and odium of leaders and par-
ties have changed often in leadership, and sometimes in
names.
The feelings, opinions and principles of men are modi-
fied much in and by changes of place and position ; and
by the use of power on the one hand, and being the sub-
jects of it on the other. Men in power and with legal au-
thority over men love its use ; and incline to construe the
grants of power inorganic and statute law or from custom
liberally toward its use and enlargement. Men out of
power and its subjects, to be ruled by others, are jealous
of it, and of the men who wield it over them; and, as a
sequence, they favor a strict construction of the grants of
power, and are generally found to be active and often
clamorous for the vindication of all legal and constitu-
tional maxims that look to the securing of popular
rights.
The public men of Georgia, whose lives I have had the
opportunity to study and comprehend, have partaken of
the common passions and frailties of men of other States
and sections, have been patriotic and unselfish enough to
vindicate the true principles of Republican Government;
and selfish enough to use all the advantages resulting from
such patriotic public service to gain and hold positions of
power, honor and profit. Vice, selfishness and perfidy, nor
patriotism, philanthropy and virtue, constitute the crown
of either of the political parties of this or any past pe-
riod of the State, but are largely distributed to both ; and
it is this general truth that renders individual history of
MY CONTEMPOEARIES.— 1857. 33
men, as connected with transpiring events, the most at-
tractive and vakiable dress for the records of a country.
The results of personal ambition and individual antago-
nisms in the development and career of parties in the
Union have been reproduced on a smaller scale by the
quest for places of honor and profit, and consequent quar-
rels of the early political leaders of this State. The is-
sues passed away with them ; but the seeds sown still
yield fruit in the divisions and strife of men of ability, in-
tegrity, and patriotism. The dead men are not here to an-
swer for their motives, nor will the living be to reply to
what may here be said of them ; still, the truth of history
is of more value to mankind than the fame of any indi-
vidual leader of the people, especially if based on fiction
or misunderstood pretensions to greatness.
We are at a period, already, when unbiased intelligence
can discern the purity of purpose and devotion to the
public good of the leaders of our local parties, and of the
good people who espoused their respective causes. But
time will be slow in the process, if indeed there shall ever
be satisfactory development of faultless reasons for the
extremes to which they allowed themselves to go.
While the ambition of priests and clergymen, in extreme
zeal for the cause of religion as understood by them and
for the prerogatives of official power, has deluged the
world with religious sects, that of political leaders has
brought upon the country heartless divisions among good
people, aiming at the same general objects — good govern-
ment and the protection of life, liberty, and property.
It is, therefore, no violation of the facts and truths of
our State history to say that the parties who have had
their day upon the stage in great part were the har-
vest of seed sown by party leaders, and were watered and
34 MY COXTEMPORAEIES.— 1857.
matured by tlieir personal aspirations, conflicts, and quar-
rels. Our descendants will never be able to discern why
a quarrel and duel between two public men should for
years divide and support a feud between the people of a
State.
There never has been a time in this State when her
people generally, and with rare exceptions, were not thor-
oughly devoted to the cause of liberty and independence;
never a time since the leaders of the United States gov-
ernment sprang divisions on strict and latitudinous con-
struction ; and upon the question, on one side, of a strong
central government ; on the other, strong checks on
Federal power and assumptions of power, and a strict
guard over the reserved rights of the State and the peo-
ple— in a word, since there was a Republican party
making popular rights the leading idea, and a Federal
party making a strong central government the para-
mount aim — that the people of this state were not thor-
oughly republican, independent of all local divisions and
parties. The Nullification, the State rights, the Troup,
the Whig parties, have ever been sound union parties on
a proper and secure basis and w^ell defined security to
constitutional rights. The Republican, the Union, the
Clark, and Democratic have always been devoted to State
rights, as both j)arties understood their elementary prin-
ciples. Their divisions on men have generally been the
results of passion ; and those upon issues of policy often
resulted from the bent of parties already organized to
follow chosen men as leaders.
While this is true, we cannot be indifferent to the
masterly powers, the moral courage, and personal great-
ness of the men our fathers foUow^ed and honored. The
hearts swells, with admiration as their characters are
MY CONTEMPOEAKIES.— 1857. 35
brought to us in authenticated tradition and in sparsely
written history. It is cause of regret that neither is full
nor infallible. The contests between the adherents of
Gov. John Clark and Gov. George M. Troup, growing out
of temporary differences between people of the same aim
and common destiny, are still in the memory of the old
men of the State ; and the complexion of their politics
and the status of their political alignments have often
been produced by the prejudices engendered in those
heated contests. They have been repeated and repro-
duced with changes of leaders and issues, and the efflux
of time to the present. It has never been accepted as a
mark of a bad man that his party suffered defeat under
his lead. Racers have always been fruitful of excuses
for the failure of a favorite steed, in the condition of the
track, the mistakes of the rider, the health and keeping
of the horse, and have been ready and anxious to risk
the purse upon him in a second trial. So it has ever
been with the people and the candidates of the Whig
and Democratic parties of this State. I well remember
the exultations of the Democrats, and mortification of the
Whigs, when Charles J. McDonald was elected over their
idol and model leader, Charles Dougherty, for governor,
and later over William C. Dawson. And when the rejoic-
ing was at the highest tide in the Whig camp, when
George W. Crawford defeated the noble old Roman, Mark
A. Cooper, in 1843, and the sterling and solid Mathew
Hall McAlister in 1845. And again, 1847, the tide of
victory was turned to the Democrats in the triumph of
their graceful and gifted leader, George W. Towns, over
Gen. Duncan L. Clinch ; and in 1849 over the gifted,
able, and accomplished Edward Young Hill. But these,
like the contests of Gilmer and Joel Crawford, Lumpkin,
36 MY CONTEMPOEARIES.— 1857.
and Scliley, resulted from the ebbs and flows of the tide
of fortune of parties closely matched in leadership and
in numerical strength. The beaten leaders were wounded
and not slain ; defeated and not conquered ; not dis-
graced or disqualified from entering the recurring con-
flicts between the contending hosts.
Many of the leaders and ambitious aspirants have
changed party alignments and associations. Such changes
have been attributed by the parties they left to resent-
ments and disappointments, and to hopes of better suc-
cess in the ranks of the party to which they had been
opposed of becoming leaders and obtaining office. But
such changes have usually taken place upon the change
of issues, or the action of parties upon public measures,
affording plausible and reasonable grounds for what were
commonly denominated political somersaults. And they
have been generally attended with warm reception by
the party to which they acceded. Parties "were never
otherwise than so in need of as to desire and give encour-
agement to new recruits, and to be able to see the most
patriotic motives on their part; while the party losing the
leader professed to find out then that he had always been
selfish and actuated by motives of personal ambition.
One of the most potent agencies that have tended to
make Georgia a great State was, that, on all the issues of
the past, the parties seeking to gain or hold power have
been so equally divided as to keep the leaders, and the
party press, perpetually vigilant and active. The policy
of putting forward the ablest and best men for public
honors was dictated by the exigencies, and the require-
ment for men of ability and spotless reputation as stand-
ard bearers and leaders. The espionage or guard over
the public officers by political opponents has always been
MY CONTEMPOE ARIES.— 1857. 37
a security against their wilful or negligent dereliction
in official duties. The parties were usually led by men
of ability, fair fame, and ambition on either side, feeling
that they w^ere the custodians of the honor and reputa-
tion of their respective organizations. The leaders were
followed and supported by people of a common blood
and heritage, who felt the sacred duty and trust of ever
seconding and sustaining their leaders. The natural re-
sult, among people who have a rich country, ease and
exemption from toil, with leisure to devote to the matters
of government, has been to make them intelligent in poli-
tics, and jealous of the fame of their leaders, and to erect
a high standard of patriotism, and of official and per-
sonal integrity.
One of the striking evidences of popular virtue is that,
from my earliest recollection, the most effective weapon
with which to strike the enemy in a party contest has
been to assail the candidate with whatsoever imparts
personal dishonor, dereliction of official duty, or infidelity
to any trust, provided the charges were true. But if
false, they were the most powerful agencies of solidifying
the party, and making its members active, and recoiled
terribly upon the accusing party.
The active and controlling men are large parts of the
sum total of the period, that must in some form, and to
some extent, truly or erroneously, go into its history.
But confidence falters in contemplation of the attempt to
daguerreotype them, and to draw a picture to be seen
after the objects have perished with the author and the
heat and passion that are now realized shall have passed
out of the sight and memory of men.
The State has a brilliant array of men in office. James
M. "Wayne, associate justice of the supreme court of the
38 MY CONTEMPORAEIES.— 1857. •
United States, one of the men of large brain and good
balance of mind of the old class of men still on duty ;
John C. Is'icholl, justice of the United States district of
Georgia, holding the circuit and district courts of the
southern district of Georgia at Savannah ; and the court
of the northern district of Georgia, in which the juris-
diction of the circuit and district courts are blended, at
Marietta. Both are men of learning and probity, and
have the full confidence of the lawyers and people.
Joseph Henry Lumpkin, Charles J. McDonald, and
Henry L. Benning, judges of the supreme court of the
State. There are several superior court judges, who are
perhaps inferior to them only in position, William B.
Fleming, of Savannah, William W. Holt, of Augusta ;
the bold, impetuous, and eloquent advocate without supe-
rior, the fearless, political speaker, and able jurist,
Thomas W. Thomas, of Elberton ; Orville A. Bull, of La-
Grange, who is a staid and steady, and sterling man, as
well - as cautious and well-balanced jurist; James H.
Stark, of Griffin, who came afoot to Georgia as a school
teacher, and worked his way up to the level of the ablest
and clearest-headed judges of the State. He is a man of
terseness and brevity, and without eloquence, with a
large heart and unbounded charity, of perennial humor
and wit, whom it is easy to love as a friend ; Robert V.
Hardeman, of Clinton, a ruddy, bland, well-rounded, and
somewhat ponderous man, whose body moves slowly, and
mind in like manner, but with great certainty and relia-
bility, and a man whose integrity is so long settled as to
never be mentioned ; Turner H. Trippe, of Cassville, who
has been recalled to the bench in his advanced life, hav-
ing served in that capacity many years ago ; James
Jackson, of Athens, somewhat young, but honored and
MY CONTEMPOEARIES.— 1857. 39
true representative of a historic family ; Joseph E. Brown,
of Canton, Dennis Fletcher Hammond, of Newnan, Alex.
,A. Allen, of Bainbridge, Peter E. Love, of Thomasville,
A. E. Cochran, of Brunswick, David Kiddoo, of Cuthbert,
Abner P. Powers, of Macon, and Edmond H. "Worrell, of
Talbotton.
David J. Bailey, of Griffin, a man of vigorous and bold
mind, as lawyer and politician, and of tall and manly
form, who has served with distinction in Congress, is the
president of the State senate, and William H. Stiles who
also represented the State in Congress with distinction,
and the government of the United States as minister to
Austria under President Polk, a man of eleo:ance and
polish, and a gifted orator, has accepted the honorable
service of representative of Chatham county, in the Leg-
islature, and is speaker of the House. Herchel V. John-
son is governor, and in the full splendor of mental and
physical manhood.
It is noteworthy truth, that either but few men of fee-
ble constitution, or short-lived tendencies, are called to
high stations of honor in this State, or that such places
tend to the promotion of longevity. All the governors
who have been in office since John Clark retired in 1823?
are still in life except George W. Towns who was some-
what frail, with all his grace of person, and John Forsyth,
whose physical frame, and form and development, made
him a marked man in any presence, and without superiors.
George M. Troup, whose life is a part of the history of
this State for many years, is seventy-six years old, a large
slaveholder on his plantations, with all the ease that
wealth can purchase for the old, and all the freedom and
independence of thought and speech that result from the
remaining vigor of his strong and fearless mind.
40 MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857.
Wilson Lumpkin, aged seven ty-fonr, William Schley,
aged seventy-one, and George R. Gilmer, sixty-six, all
men of above average native capacity, and of large expe-
rience in public service, and of unquestioned probity
and patriotism, are in the ease and comfort of home in
private life, enjoying the reward of conscious public vir-
tue and fidelity, and of duty well and faithfully per-
formed. George W. Crawford, one of the most successful
and popular of the modern governors, and one of the best
of the old Whigs, lives in the ease of his private fortune,
and declines the public honors in the gift of his party.
He is fifty nine years old, and well preserved. Charles
J. McDonald, after retiring from the executive ofiice, pur-
sued his law practice with success, and now discharges the
arduous labors of justice of the supreme court ; and no
judge of that court since its organization, twelve years
ago, has died.
Howell Cobb, one of the marked men of the State and
of the Union, is still a comparatively young man. He
was speaker in Congress before he was governor, and on
his defeat for United States senator retired to j^rivate life
until the next election for Congress in his district, when
he accepted service in that body. He is supposed to be
on the high road to the presidency of the United States
by those who best comprehend his rare combination of
mental powers and popular manners, his deep and un-
swerving patriotism, integrity and fidelity, with a large
measure of ambition for that extraordinary distinction.
■ In Congress the array is exceptionally brilliant — Robert
Toombs, one of the old Whig leaders, is a Democratic
senator, with Alfred Iverson, an old Democrat.
In addition to Howell Cobb, who has returned to the
House, w^e have one of the brightest intellects of the
MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857. 41
Union, who has been constantly a member since 1842,
Alexander Hamilton Stephens. Hiram Warner, who had
served in early life in the Legislature, three terms as judge
of the superior court and one as justice of the supreme
court, after several years' retirement, represents his district
as an old line Democrat. John Henry Lumpkin, the
nephew of Wilson and Joseph Henry, who is an old Demo-
cratic leader of Cherokee, Georgia, has been solicitor,
judge, and had large experience in Congress, with fair
abilities and great personal fidelity and popularity. Na-
thaniel Green Foster, a man of splendid form and person,
an able lawyer and Baptist preacher, and James L. Seward,
an able lawyer, represent the Savannah district. Robert
P. Trippe, one of the favorite Whig leaders of middle
Georgia, represents the Macon district. The Columbus
district, where there are so many men of ability and dis-
tinction, is represented by the elegant, polished, and gifted
young Martin J. Crawford, whose name and kindred are
largely blended in the State's history.
Since the earliest of my recollection there has been an
array of men of both parties in this State among whom
it was an honor to be prominent and distinguished, some
of whom have died, but very many still live.
I was an enthusiastic listener, not long since, to that
man who among the living is as generally beloved as any,
Joseph Henry Lumpkin, describing to me the men promi-
nent in his part of the State in former years. He had
exalted opinions of many of them, but among them all
William H. Crawford was the Ajax in mind, and a man
of true nobility of character with all his powers.
His lauQ-uao-e was, " He stood a full head and shoulders
above all the men of his day in this State." He has now
been dead twenty-three years, and if his great spirit ob-
42 MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857.
serves the affairs of the country he so loved in life, no
doubt he has joy in the height and grandeur to which his
surviving admirer has risen. Lumpkin is in the full de-
velopment of his physical and almost godlike manhood
and intellectual vigor. He is not a politician from taste,
though a decided Whig. He is a Christian and philan-
thropist and a scholar of large attainments, and an orator
of great and almost magic power that distinguished him
from his early youth. Standing aloof from political pur-
suits, extensive practice matured him as a lawyer and
made him famous as advocate. Close application and
labor on the supreme court bench, have ripened him
into an able and profound judge. His uniform purity and
virtue in public and private have securely established him
in the confidence of lawyers and people of all parties ;
and the tribute of no one man could be of more value
than that he freely and sincerely pays to the personal
friend and political idol of his youth and young manhood.
But his senior brother, Wilson Lumpkin, who has main-
tained in public office in both Houses of the State Legis-
lature and of Congress, as governor for two terms, and in
all places of public trust the unbroken confidence of his
party and the respect and esteem of all good people in
public and in private, is a severe and sterling Democrat.
He admired John M. Dooly, had stronger faith in his
political wisdom and integrity. John M. Dooly was, from
tradition and description by those who have seen him, a
widely different man from Wilson Lumpkin whom I have
seen and talked with often. Lumpkin is a plain-spoken,
candid, old ruddy man with white luxuriant hair, a man
of labor and toil, of truth without fiction or poetry, who
won his way to public confidence and position and held
them by common sense, common honesty, industry, and
MY CONTEMPOEARIES.— 1857. 43
integrity. Dooly was a man of electricity in body and
mind, whose large, piercing black eye spoke itself in vol-
umes of convincing power in harmony with his severe
reason and logic.
Many of the old men regard Thomas W. Cobb, some
Duncan G. Campbell, some Eli S. Shorter and some John
Forsyth, as the greatest man of that period. The last
named seems to deserve special mention in connection
with William H. Crawford, on account of their respective
long and brilliant career and opposing political opinions.
They lived in a section of the Union not favorable to the
highest national honor on account of political weakness ;
but it is doubtful if these men had many, if any, superiors
in the Union in intellectual power or personal presence
and magnetic influence over men. Both were of the
highest type of johysical development in the New World ;
both ambitious, daring, and brave. Forsyth was a little
younger than Crawford and survived him from 1834 to
1841. They both came when young from Virginia,
where heroes and statesmen were born, and transmitted
the blood royal of republican liberty to their descend-
ants. Crawford was in the Senate, and Forsyth in the
House of Congress from this State in the early years of
the century. Both have been distinguished in the Senate
and House at different periods and as cabinet officers and
as foreign ministers, Crawford in France, and Forsyth in
Spain.
Crawford the defeated candidate for president of the
United States, in shattered health, the idol of his country-
men, spent the last years of his life as judge of his circuit.
Forsyth had been a United States senator as early as 1818,
governor as early as 1827, and afterward returned to the
Senate. Both died with the full confidence of their
44 MY CONTEMPORAEIES.— 1857.
countrymen, and the halo of public honors that has
gathered around their long, historic, and brilliant exer-
cise of the masterly powers with which nature had en-
dowed them is a part of the treasure the living have in
the lives of the dead.
A few years later, and coming near to the present, other
leaders became prominent and powerful, were loved and
honored by the people, and have passed away. Charles
Dougherty, John McPherson Berrien, Andrew J. Miller,
and James A. Meriwether of the Whigs ; Walter T. Col-
quitt, Hugh A. Haralson, Joseph Jackson and George W.
Towns of the Democrats. With the men of the middle sec-
tion of the State, Dooly, Harris, Cobb, and Crawford lived
and have been succeeded by Lumpkin, Junius Hillyer,
Howell Cobb, Hope Hull, William C. Dawson, and Francis
H. Cone. Charles Dougherty was an idol with the bar and
people. No standard is regarded as too high by which to
measure the power of his mind or the magnitude of his
heart, and none too gentle or too pure by which to test
his priceless social virtues. He gave his counsel and ad-
vice like the sun gives his light and heat ; all could feel
their warmth and see their wisdom. Nature made him
great, but the whig party failed to invest him with politi-
cal power. But his defeat only kept, as similar fortune
has kept many of our best men who are fit as he was for
any station, in the shades of private life.
His heart was in full accord with his mind ; and his
moral courage was equal to any emergency He differed
from Berrien, Dawson, Jenkins, Toombs, Stephens and
other leaders of his party, in 1850, as to the true course
for the South, on account of anti-slavery aggressions on
the part of the North ; and like a few others of the old
Whigs younger in years, such as Lucius J. Gartrell, Wat-
MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857. 45
son G. Harris, James L. Seward, and James N. Ramsey,
took open position with the Southern Rights Democrats
of the State.
John McPherson Berrien began the public service when
young ; died old after he had been in it nearly half a cen-
tury, and without a spot or stain upon his escutcheon.
He was long engaged as solicitor, and afterwards judge
of the eastern circuit ; member of the Legislature ; attor-
ney general of the United States ; and for many years,
at different periods in the United States Senate ; and dur-
ing all his life as an eminent practitioner of the law. In
all he w\as distinguished for his stability, dignity, urbanity,
method and caution ; and for the highest grade of foren-
sic and parliamentary ability ; and for devotion to his set-
tled convictions of right. He was ten years the senior of
his neighbor and personal and political friend. Judge Wil-
liam Law: who has been less in political life; but has
much of the suavity and polish, dignity and probity, so
justly and universally awarded the lamented senator, and
is scarcely, if at all, his inferior as a lawyer and jurist.
The most remarkable democratic leader of the genera-
tion thus passed, and passing away in this State, was the
contemporary, and, for a period, the rival of Judge Berrien
for political championship in the Senate : Walter T. Col-
quitt. As a member of the House and Senate, judge of
the superior court, minister of the Gospel, ^practitioner
and advocate as a lawyer and political stump orator, his
name is a household word, from the time of my earliest
memory. His contemporaries at the bar ascribe to him as
an advocate powers that were marvellous, not to say, irre-
sistible. His style of oratory on the stump, where I fre-
quently heard him, had no model, or successful imitator
in the men of the period. Many men have strong passion
46 MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857. '
and power of delivery ; and can create intense excitement
in large crowds of assembled masses in open air. But
none Avere his equal in all the elements of a magic-work-
ing orator : intensity of his own excitement and physical
action, the music and harmony of a powerful voice under
the command of a powerful mind and body. And none
approximated him when the magic of his almost resistless
eloquence gave place, often suddenly, to his humor, un-
bounded in current; and his wit, that flared as quickly
and brightly as the lightning ; and was as terrible on his
foes as the thunderbolt itself.
But his ardent love of truth made him too ardent a de-
fender of right for the political times of his latter days.
It made him a " Southern Rights Man," a " Fire Eater "
as they were called, who made the cause of the South, in
the attempt to stay the tide of Northern anti-slavery ag-
gressions, paramount to parties. His strong enunciation
in public and private, upon the magnitude of the impend-
ing struggle which seemed to him imminent, now so hap-
pily postponed, made him, in the opinion of many, an ex-
tremist, and sectionalist, looking to the dreaded calamity
of disunion and revolution. And such views in reference
to him, by the people, for the vindication of whose rights
he was, in their judgment, too ardent, disarmed him in
his latter days of much of the power he could have other-
wise possessed over the popular will.
Hugh A. Haralson was not so brilliant or eloquent as
Colquitt, Cobb and Johnson ; but was a man of fine pres-
ence and bearing. His personal integrity and fidelity to
the people who honored him, close attention to official
duty, gave him a strong hold on the affections of the peo-
ple of western Georgia ; and made him a powerful Dem-
ocratic leader. He was one of the few men whose terms
MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857. 47
of public office did not fluctuate with the ebbing and flow-
ing of the closely matched parties of his district.
One of the best men of the period was a man whose
services were confined to his own State : the lamented
Andrew J. Miller, of Augusta. Not ambitious, but devoted
to the public good ; modest, yet bold and fearless ; an hon-
est man loving the right, he was ever firm in maintaining
it. He was not eloquent, but able ; not haughty, but
proud in the dignity of a true and noble man, conscious
of the rectitude of his purposes and fearless of criticism
or censure. Mr. Miller had but few superiors, but the
friends of both, as well as political opponents, did not
hesitate to rank above him, his neighbor and lifelong
personal 'and political friend, — Charles J. Jenkins.
Mr. Jenkins is one of the truly great, as well as noble
men of the age. Not the equal of Stephens, Toombs, and
his successful rival, Johnson, in impassioned eloquence, in
the capacity to move, stir and enthuse great multitudes
of mixed people, his style, manner and bearing are more
suited to leadership of intellectual assemblies. He is not
the inferior of these in correctness, depth and vigor of
thought. His style is as faultless, and his sentences as
perfect. He speaks after deliberation, and never has to
take back, modify or explain, in order to keep pace with
other men or to drift with the popular current.
James A. Meriwether, another Whig leader, has also
lately gone, of whose mental powers a higher estimate is
due than many of his associates and friends were willing
to award him. He had been a Whig member of Congress
and served with distinction ; had graced the bar and bench,
and was at the time of his death an honored Representa-
tive of Putnam county, and speaker of the House of Rep-
resentatives of the State Legislature.
48 MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857.
The Warren Brothers. — These distinguished lawyers
and prominent members of the old Whig party in south-
ern Georgia are natives of Burke county. Lott was born
in October, 1798, and Eli in February, 1801. The father,
Joseph Warren, removed to Lawrence county, where he
and the mother died while Lott and Eli were two of a
large family of children, and were raised in Wilkinson
county, by their brother-in-law. Reverend Charles Cul-
pepper, w^ho educated them in the country schools,
neither ever liavinp^ been at school in a town or villa2:e.
Lott came to the bar at Dublin about 1820, was after-
wards solicitor general and State senator. In 1828 was
elected judge of the southern circuit, as a Troup man,
was afterwards beaten for the office by Honorable Moses
Fort, a Clark man, and removed to Americas, where he
practised a number of years and removed to Albany ; was
elected to Congress in 1838 and 1840, and was twice
elected judge of the southern circuit, and his administra-
tion is remarked for ability and integrity. He is, more-
over, a Baptist minister of pure and spotless character.
He, like his brother Eli, never drank intoxicating liquors,
never chewed or smoked tobacco. Eli, when a vouth,
spent tv/o years in Mississippi ; but returned to Georgia
and, in the office of his brother, studied law and was ad-
mitted to the bar in 1823. He served many years as a
member of the Legislature of Lawrence county, in the
House and Senate ; and was often elected without oppo-
sition. He now resides at the beautiful town of Perry,
in Houston county, and practises law.
It is doubtful if any State has produced such an array
of intellectual men as Georgia at this period. In truth,
the number is such, of men whose endowments would
have made them noted in other times, that abilities alone,
MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857. 49
without attending propitious circumstances, are not suf-
ficient to secure more than ordinary local distinction.
The general diffusion of education, and the manifest re-
wards of superior intellectuality have summoned the mil-
lion to the competition, while many have been aroused
to effort by the demands of poverty, or the urgent claims
of business in their respective trades, avocations, and po-
sitions in life.
There are comparatively few who have been devoted
to literature, or to study and learning, except as they
seemed necessary in and ancillary to their success in
other pursuits.
We have had and now have many preachers in the or-
thodox churches in this State, of pulpit eloquence that
would have distinguished them in this or any country in
Europe a century or two ago, who have been known only
to a limited extent beyond the circle of pastoral duties.
The State has given many able preachers to the church,
such, for instance, as Lovic Pierce, James 0. Andrew, Jesse
Mercer, John E. Dawson, Alonzo Church, S. K. Talmage,
Stephen Elliott, Ignatius Few, John Colinsworth, Charles
D. Malory, Vincent Thornton, William Arnold, Andrew
Hammel, Isaac Waddell, Asa Chandler, Billington M. San-
ders, Cyrus White, James Henderson, Joel Colley, Wil-
liam Moseley, A. B. Longstreet, John Walker Glenn, Jo-
seph S. Baker, Adam T. Holmes, Allen Turner, Samuel
Anthony, Jesse H. Campbell, Jonathan Davis, Alexander
Means, George F. Pierce, Henry H. Tucker, Jesse Boring,
William J. Parks, William T. Brantley, Charles M. Irvine,
James E. Evans, Russell Renneau, Caleb Key, Armenius
Wright, Shaler G. Hillyer, Alfred T. Mann, Patrick H.
Mell, E. II. Myers, Nathaniel Macon Crawford, John Jones,
John S. Wilson, Edward Neufville, Henry Kollock, John
50 MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857.
P. Duncan, Eustace Spear, Isaac Axson, Hoyt, C. W.
Lane.
Preachers, like lawyers, differ from each other in men-
tal and physical constitution, in temper, manner, and
doubtless in depth, stability, and sincerity of piety their
chief qualification for their sacred mission. Those who
have distinguished themselves, and accomplished great
good, have differed widely in early advantages of educa-
tion, and in their progress in and cultivation of general
learning ; as in the above short list, which contains some
of the most learned, as well as a few whose learning was
limited almost to the text and commentaries of standard
authors on the Bible. They also differ widely as to their
methods of preserving, to transmit to future generations,
the benefits, of their study and labor. Some will live in
their sermons and theological disquisitions ; while others,
dealing alone in, and producing powerful effect by extem-
poraneous logic, pathos and eloquence, will live only in
vague tradition, and that but for a brief period of the
world's rapid march and change.
It is a period of silent revolution in the methods of
propagating religion and gaining members to the Chris-
tian churches. Instead of appealing to the middle aged
and the old, and relying on persons of mature mind and
age to keep the ranks of the laity filled, and to supply
the places of departing and retiring clergy, it is found
that the children are more easily inducted, and more to
be relied on for increasing the membership. Instead of
converting people who are hardened in sin and inured
to vice, the leading minds of the churches have directed
their policy more to early training, and to bringing up
people to be religious from childhood. Hence the Sab-
bath school system has become popular and in general
MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857. 51
use. Men of ability and eloquence, instead of preaching
to large crowds at camp and mass religious meetings, who
are not often accustomed to hear eloquent discourses, now,
on account of the increase of preachers and local churches,
preach more often in church edifices and to regular con-
gregations and organized churches ; and hence it is more
difficult to become widely known, even if there were
fewer eloquent pulpit orators.
It is not so with lawyers and politicians. The contests
over life, liberty, and property draw the people to the fo-
rum of public justice, and the antagonisms of opposing
parties arouse the masses, and draw the people together
to hear their chosen speakers and leaders. Political lit-
erature and news are far more attractive to the great ma-
jority of men than that of art, science, or the Bible.
It attracts attention that a larg^e volume of le^-al talent
in this State is in brothers, such as Alexander H. and Lin-
ton Stephens,Charles and William Dougherty of this State,
and Robert Dougherty of Alabama ; Howell and Thomas
R. R. Cobb, Eli and Lott Warren of Southern Georgia ;
Daniel and Alexander McDougald of Columbus; Edward
Y. of Lagrange, and Joshua Hill of Madison ; Nathaniel
and Albert Foster of Madison, Ebenezer D. and Charles
G. of Newnan, and William McKinley of Milledgeville ;
John I. of Newton, and Stuart Floyd of Morgan county,
Edmond H. of Talbot, and Bedford S. Worrell of Stewart
county, John Worrell of Sumter county ; Obadiah C. of
Upson, and William Gibson of Warren county ; Seaborn
Jones of Muscogee, and John A. Jones of Polk county ;
Augustus H. Hansell of Pulaski, and Andrew J. Hansell
of Cobb county ; William F. of Coweta, and Gilbert J.
Wright of Carroll county ; William W. and Henrj'" F.
Merrell of Carroll county j Philemon and Edward D.
52 . MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857.
Tracy of Macon ; William and Charles D. Phillips of Cobb
county ; Eugenius L. and Marcellus' Douglass of Randolph
county ; Richard F. Lyon and John Lyon of Dougherty
county ; Eugenius A. and James A. Nesbit of Macon ;
William K. De Graffenreid of Macon, and Benjamin B. De
Graffenreid of Milledgeville ; Samuel Hall and Robert S.
Hall of Macon county ; John McPherson Berrien of Sa-
vannah, Thomas M. Berrien of Waynesboro, and I. W. M.
Berrien of Rome ; George S. and John W. Owens, Savan-
nah ; Joseph E. and James R. Brown, Cherokee county ;
Lucius J. Gartrell of Fulton, and John 0. Gartrell of Cobb
county ; George N. of Cobb, and Paul Lester of Forsyth
county ; John R. and Thomas W. Alexander, Rome ;
George D. of Cobb, and John H. Rice of Cass county ;
Hiram and Obadiah Warner of Meriwether county ; John
W. Barney of Jasper, and Thomas I. Barney of Morgan
county ; Henry H. and William Gumming of Augusta ;
George, John, and William R. Schley of Augusta ; L T.
and R. I. Bacon of Lagrange ; Samuel C. of Sumter, and
William D. Elara of Marion county. A large number of
whom have been prominent in the legal profession, and
many of them in the politics of the State. But it only
presents a partial list of the prominent and gifted men of
this period.
Barnard Hill of Talbot ; David L^win of Cobb ; Warren
Akin of Cass ; Charles Murphy of DeKalb ; William H.
Dabney of Gordon ; Nathan L. Hutchings of Gwinnett ;
Junius Wingfield of Putnam ; James M. Calhoun and John
Collier of Fulton ; David H. Vason and Henry Morgan
of Dougherty ; Augustus Reese, Thomas P. Saffold and
Isham Fannin of Morgan ; William M. Reese of Wilkes ;
Edward H. Pottle of Warren ; Isaac E. Bower of Baker ;
William C. Perkins of Randolph ; Eldridge G. Cabaniss
MY CONTEMPOE ARIES.— 1857. 53
and James S. Pinchard of Monroe ; David W. Lewis of
Hancock ; W. H. Dabney, of Gordon ; Thomas Chandler,
of Carroll county, — are among the stable men of fair
ability without brilliancy, and take high rank in their sec-
tions of the State.
Among the older class of able men are William Ezzard
and Amos W. Hammond of Atlanta ; Iverson L Harris
and Augustus H. Kenan of Milledgeville ; Washington
Poe, Absalom H. Chappell, Samuel Terry Bailey, John
Rutherford, James I. Gresham, Henry G.Lamar of Macon ;
Junius Hillyer of Athens ; William T. Gould, Ebenezer
Starnes, John Millege of Augusta ; William S. Rockwell,
William B. Flemming, the lamented Robert M. Charlton,
William Law, Levi S. De Lyon of Savannah; Thomas
Butler King of Glynn county.
Among the brilliant men in middle age are John E.
Ward, Francis S. Bartow, Henry R. Jackson, Alexander
R Lawton of Savannah ; John W. H. Underwood, Augus-
tus R. Wright of Rome ; William Hope Hull, and Cincin-
natus Peeples of Athens ; Luther J. Glenn, Lucius J. Gar-
trell, Basil H. Overby of Atlanta ; William W. Clark, John
A. Tucker and Burwell K. Harrison of Stewart county ;
Robert McMillan of Habersham county ; Thomas W.
Thomas of Elbert county.
Among the able and prominent men of middle age are
Edward J. Harden, Thos E. Lloyd, Henry Williams of
Savannah ; Robert P. Trippe of Monroe; Lucius H. Feather-
stone of Heard county; Blount C. Ferrell of Troup county;
Eobert J. Cowart of Atlanta ; Elijah W. Chastain of Gil-
mer ; H. S. M'Kay of Sumter county ; Samuel Y. Jamison
of Union county; Richard M. Johnson of Hancock ; James
Milner of Cass county; Andrew H. H. Dawson, J. M.
Lovell of Savannah ; Richard Simms and Joseph Law of
54 MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857.
Bainbridge ; Samuel S. Stafford of Early county, Amos T,
Akerman, Eobert Hester of Elbert county ; Mial M. Tid-
well of Fayette county ; Thomas Morris of Franklin, Ben-
jamin Oliver of Heard county; James P. Simmons of Gwin-
nett county; Andrew J. Hansell of Cobb county; James
A. Pringle of Houston ; Samuel P. Thoward of Jackson
county ; George A. Hall, Obadiah Warner of Meriwether
county; Hartford Green^ofPike county ; Leonard T. Doy-
lall of Griffin; Piobert S. Burch, A. T. Mclntyre of Thomas
county ; John B. Morgan of Troup county ; Noel B. Night
of Cobb county ; Porter Ingram of Harris.
Among the prominent younger men my seniors, some
of whom are able and brilliant, are Logan E. Bleckley
of Atlanta ; Hugh Buchanan of Coweta ; James M. Smith
of Upson ; Levi B. Smith of Talbot ; William A Harris of
Worth ; Willis A. Hawkins of Sumter ; John L. Harris of
Glynn ; Ambrose R. Wright of Jefferson ; William T. Wof-
ford of Cass; Edward Dale Chisolm of Polk; Thomas Harde-
man, Jr. and Alexander M. Spear of Bibb ; James N. Ram-
sey and James M. Moblej^ of Harris county; Alfred H.
Colquitt of Baker ; Benjamin H. Bighan of 'J'roup ; Joel
A. Billups of Morgan ; Leander W. Crook of Chattooga
Rufus W. McCane of Spalding; W.S.Wallace of Taylor
George T. Bartlett of Jasper ; Alexander Pope of Wilkes
James R. Lyon of Butts; Miles W. Lewis of Green; Richard
H. Clark of Baker ; Samuel Hall of Macon ; John A. Jones,
Jr., Beverly E. Thornton of Muscogee ; John Jinks
Jones of Burke county ; Charles W. Mabry of Heard
county ; Daniel S. Printup of Floyd county ; Osborne A.
Lochrane. of Bibb county.
There are many men who have attained political dis-
tinction who are not lawyers, among them the learned
and eloquent Dr. Homer Y. M. Miller of Rome, a man
MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857. 5.5
long distinguished as the Demosthenes of the mountains,
who has never been elected to a public office ; the brilliant
and eloquent James Watson Harris of Cass county ; Gen.
William B. WofFord of Habersham; Thomas Stocks of
Green ; Gen. Peter Cone of Bullock ; Joseph Dunnegan of
Hall ; Dr. George D. Phillips of Habersham ; James Gard-
ner and Thomas C. Howard, who retired from the law
practice early to enter upon the brilliant career of polit-
ical editors ; Theodore L. Giierry of Randolph ; and John
D. Stell of Fayette county ; Simpson Fouclie of Floyd
county; Mark A. Cooper of Cass county.
These lists do not embrace by far all, but present a fair
representation of the prominent Georgians of the period,
extending as it does from the old and retiring, down to
many not much older than myself whose race of life is
still to run.
There are two men now in advanced life, about whom a
separate volume might be written, more important to the
prosperity of the State than any of our politicians, who
long ago retired from law and politics to carry forward to
its grand success the great railway improvement of the
State ; these are Richard R. Cuyler of Savannah and
John P. King of Augusta.
If each individual mentioned were the subject of a truth-
ful sketch, there would be manifest the greatest possible
diversity of talents and capabilities, of learning, of habits
of industry and application, of style and manner, of culture
and taste, as well as moral character. Many of them are
church members, and some are consistently religious ;
others far less consistent in practice. Many who do not
profess to be religious and are not church members are
stable in morals, and noted for purity of character in
public and private. Some are addicted to drunkenness,
56 MY CONTEMPORAEIES.— 1857.
some to gaming, and some to other sensual vices ; but
the array of personal integrity, honor, morality, and
purity of private character, is lovely to contemplate by
all who are interested in the preservation of the glory
of the present and transmitting it to future generations.
I present five men together whom I closely noticed
because of their eccentricities as well as power and influ-
ence, and their striking diversity of character : Owen H.
Kenan, John A. Jones, Thomas A. Latham, John Ray,
and William H. Underwood. None of them are noted
for piety, or the use of religious pretension for worldly
aims. Jones, Kenan, and Latham defy the Church and
society in some of its forms and requirements. Like
many of our public men they suffer the misfortune of
being addicted to profane swearing in public and private,
a mode of parlance and emphasis that, like that of drink-
ing in high life, has to be tolerated on account of the
respectability and number of men of wealth and social
power who follow it ; but which lowers the dignity and
weakens the influence of many of the able men of the
State.
Kenan was prominent as a law^yer and judge, out-
spoken, impulsive, and ardent in everything in which he
engaged, exacting and dictatorial, as well as honest and
brave. A man of tall and large frame, commanding man-
ner and air, and severe rough features ; wore a double-
breasted coat buttoned around his chest, and a heavy
w^atch-chain and seal, and the balance of his toilet in neg-
ligence. He is the subject of many anecdotes and narra-
tives among the old lawyers. The latter years of his
life have been on a rich farm in Murray county, sur-
rounded by wealth and ease.
Jones, who also has retired from practice on his estate
MY CONTEMPORAKIES.— 1857. 57
in Polk county, is stout and vigorous and hale at three-
score and ten, or thereabouts, and has all the fire and
courage of a man of forty. Though not regarded as the
equal in law learning and power as an advocate with his
brother Seaborn, he has been when pursuing the practice an
able law^yer, and was for a short time judge of his circuit.
He is a severe advocate, a generous and confiding friend,
and a vindictive foe ; has reduced Jefierson's theory of
State rights and sovereignty to extreme radical ideas and
is an intolerant partisan. He was for several years
prominent as member of the Legislature, and is the au-
thor of the Bill of 1847 establishing or allowing a short
form of pleading which dispenses, in great part, with
legal knowledge and skill in the pleader, the labor of
drafting, and has therefore come into common use in our
courts.
His hatred to the people of the North and of the gov-
ernment of the United States knows no bounds, and he
lives in hope of the political separation and independence
of the slaveholding States — wears his hair and beard
long, and openly and often swears never to shave until
the State of Georgia shall have seceded from the Union.
Thomas A. Latham, of Campbell county, is a man of
more general and pleasurable observation and remark,
whom everybody who knows him, in defiance of the
ordinary basis of full trust and confidence, naturally and
voluntarily likes and derives amusement and pleasure
from because he is ready to do good and be kind to all,
and can be provoked to hurt or harm none save those
who are so unwise as to assail him or depredate upon his
rights. He is in excess of six feet in height when at ease,
and a good deal so when aroused, and is of form and size
to match. Body, head, and features large, the skin that
58 MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857.
shows age, as well as graj hairs, is of coarse cellular tis-
sue. He stands with his body much in advance of his
lower limbs and feet, which are also large. He adheres
to the old method of tying his huge cravat and to the
gorgeous ruffle bosom shirt, to the double-breasted, long
swallow-tail coat, and allows on big occasions the expan-
sive bandanna handkerchief to hang out gorgeously from
the rear pocket. When quiet he is almost as still as a
tombstone, when aroused he is almost a volcano in human
form. The current of his affections is like a river in
its flow, and that of his invective and resentment like the
lava from Vesuvius.
He prides himself in being from old Virginia and in
all the amenities of the primitive stock of gentlemen
when he is amiable, gentle, and kind, but defies all forms
and ceremonies when the exigencies of the occasion, or
the fury of intoxication, disengage the sleeping elements
of the antagonist. We regard him as a careless practi-
tioner, but in the cases in which he prepares he is power-
ful and terrible. His voice is strong like his body, his
speeches are loud; his capacity to unsettle the dignity of
a court-room by ridicule and anecdote and physical per-
formance to suit are unsurpassed, and he carries this rare
faculty into the walks of private life — often sits in appar-
ently profound abstraction, undisturbing as a statue but a
close listener to the running conversation of the company,
and, when the subject has been w^orn threadbare or takes
an unsatisfactory turn, suddenly flares his sententious wit
and ridicule, or his commendation and applause, like a
shooting meteor that startles, delighting or discomfiting,
and often breaks it up into a storm of merriment and
laughter. All his instincts and emotions, as well as his
education and practices, are democratic. In private in-
MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857. 59
terview he is gentle, mild, generous, and confiding; in
debate, public or private, never fails to become boisterous
in tone and manner in praise of his own and denunciation
of the opposing party.
John Ray of Coweta county, is of Irish birth and
brogue ; has a w^ell-rounded, though not tall body ; large
head, round full features, and prominent, full dark rolling
eyes. For the last quarter of a century has been promi-
nent as a lawyer, advocate, and democratic orator in
western Georgia. Honorable, honest, consequential in
air and manner ; sensitive and brave, suspicious of foes,
and confiding with friends ; the theme and occasion of
many bar anecdotes, which his brethren seldom venture
to narrate in his presence. He now retires in the feeble
health of advanced age, in ease and wealth.
William H. Underwood, differs from them all. He was
naturally of well-formed body, and head, and face, — the
former somewhat sunken, and the latter wrinkled by age
before I ever saw him. He was of early, severe study
and extensive learning, and memory tenacious to old age.
He was a lawyer by life-long practice, except when he
performed the duties of judge in early life. He came to
Cherokee, Ga., long before my day here, from Elbert
county, where he was accustomed to meet Dooley, Thomas
W. Cobb, Jeptha V. Harris, William H. Crawford, Dun-
can G. Campbell, Tait and Blackburn, and other great
lawyers of the early part of the century.
His observation was close, and his criticism incisive.
He detected faults in all men, and their faults made
stronger impressions than their virtues on his mind, that
revelled in its own freedom, and defied the opinions of
those of weaker mould. He despised two classes, and
could scent their qualities in more men than it was popu-
60 MY CONTEMPORAEIES.— 1857.
lar to avow and publish. One hypocrites in religion, the
other demagogues in politics.
He never was a democrat as the word is now inter-
preted, or a republican as it was understood in his early
life. He has always believed in a strong general govern-
ment ; had a contempt for clamors of State rights in all
their forms, and was one of the few avowed federalists
of this State, and was the tool or slave of no party. He
was a whig, because the whigs were opposed to the
democrats ; not that he loved whigs, but hated the demo-
crats, as a party, and condemned the political ideas that
were the basis of their organization, and popular element
of success. He had profound respect for leaders he
believed to be able and patriotic and honest, who were
few in number.
His cynic wit, so proverbial, and so dreaded by court,
bar, and social companions, was the natural result of his
order of mind, his education and methods of study, his
life and honest opinions of men and things. And it came
unbidden and welling up like the water from a fountain
acted on by the law of gravity. If it pleased others he
was happy ; if it hurt others it wounded him in turn.
I, like others, long stood aloof in fear of the bristles
that pointed gangrene at my feeble powers and efforts.
But I lived to get beyond the icicles and crust he pre-
sented to the world, and to find that in the rear of it all
there was the big, warm heart of a noble old man, who
would do all the world good, if in his power,
William Dougherty and Henry L. Benning are men of
the Columbus bar, whose fame rests, the first on his
achievements and powers as a lawyer, the other, as law-
yer and judge of the State supreme court. Dougherty is
of the splendid physique of his deceased brother Charles ;
MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857. 61
and, having passed the first half century of life, is so fresh
in body and mind as to bid fair to live another fifty
years. He, like Benning, is moral and temperate in eat-
ing, and abstains from liquors and tobacco, and like him,
intemperate in labor. There are but few with whom to
compare him in order to fix his standard of ability. He
is genial in social life, stutters slightly and occasionally,
though fluent in conversation, and is full of heart-stirring
and mirth-provoking anecdote. He is powerful, logical,
brief and bold in argument, and almost irresistible before
court or jury. He is withal an enemy, and the subject
of enmity, because he has long been the hero of a financial
warfare against the stockholders of certain banks that
failed, with a large number of their bills in circulation in
the hands of the people, to make them liable to the hold-
ers of those bills. He has a large personal interest as
well as great stock of professional ambition and reputation
in the issue. The war involves many people of wealth
and influence, and calls forth the strong men of the bar
in that part of the State to protect and defend the stock-
holders against the suits on the defunct bank bills.
Henry L. Benning was one of the able lawyers arrayed
on that side ; was for some of the parties and son-in-law
of Seaborn Jones, who was a party largely interested as
well as leading lawyer in the defence. Such was the sit-
uation at the time of the election by the Legislature of
Benning as associate justice of the supreme court, in 1853,
against Judge Nesbit, whose opinions were not favorable
to the relief of the stockholders. When the questions
came before the supreme court, in cases in which Benning
was not of counsel, but involved the same questions as
the cases did in which he had been employed for other
parties, Mr. Dougherty challenged his right to preside
62 ^lY CONTEMPORA.rtIES.— 1857.
and try them with the two other judges, and demanded
that he should retire from the bench. Benning, with a
firmness strongly tested by the sentiment of the bar of
the State against it with but few exceptions, overruled
the challenge ; holding that he was not legally disquali-
fied by his having been employed and formed his opinions
from investigating the questions in other cases before his
election as judge, or by his relationship to persons inter-
ested in the questions and not parties in the cases before
him. That it was a stern duty imposed by law and his
oath of office, which he cannot shirk or evade, to preside
in all cases that come before the court, in which, by his
election, qualification, and commission, he has had given
to him power and authority to preside. The lawyers
of the State not interested as counsel differ. Some
able and stable men sustain Benning, while a ma-
jority think he should have retired. But even some
of those agree with Benning in his judgment and dissent-
ing opinions as to the liability of the stockholders after
the dissolution of the corporations. The discussion ex-
tended to the press and political circles, in which it was
freely asserted that the political influence of the bank
stockholders was brought to bear upon the Legislature in
the nomination of Benning over other prominent and
able aspirants, and in his election ; and as freely asserted,
on the other hand, that it was an element of weakness,
on account of the popular sj-mpathy in other parts of the
State with the bill holders. And it was also charged
that the refusal to re-elect Judge Nesbit, and the election
of a Democrat, was a violation of the implied compact
between the parties, when the court was organized, not to
make politics a test in the election of judges. It has, how-
ever, been the custom of both parties, with but few excep-
MY CONTEMPORAEIES.— 1857. 63
tions in the past, to elect their own men to all offices,
when they had the numerical strength to do so. Benning,
like Dougherty, is a man of learning, research, and ability
as well as courage, integrity, and purity of private char-
acter.
Columbus has furnished a magnificent cluster of
lawyers besides Colquitt, Dougherty and Benning, some
of whom have figured largely and others sparingly in pol-
itics. Among the more noted, Daniel and Alexander
McDougald, Joseph Sturgis, Alfred Iverson, Marshall J.
Welborn, Grigsby E. Thomas, Adam G. Foster, Hines
Holt, James Johnson, and Seaborn Jones, to whom, many
who knew them all well, award, that in some respects,
and in the general average of powers as counsellor, prac-
titioner and advocate he was somewhat the superior.
Two men among the most perfect models of their re-
spective style of man, and among the most universally
beloved of the old Whig leaders who retired from high
official position on the ascendency of Democratic power
in the Legislature, one from the United States Senate, the
other from the supreme court bench, were William Crosby
Dawson, lately deceased, of Greensboro ; and Eugenius
A. Nesbit, of Macon, still living. Dawson has been dis-
tinguished for all that good will to men, kindness, and
urbanity can produce in a single character. A man of
medium size and height, with large, broad nose, somewhat
flat face and forehead, and eye radiant with intelligence,
and inviting good nature and charity, indicating his gen-
erous and genial social nature to all who ever approached
him. He was endowed by nature with only ftiir average
abilities, which have been largely cultivated at the bar,
on the bench, in both houses of Congress, and as grand
master of masons.
G4 MY CONTEMPORAEIES.— 1857.
Nesbit is a model man in form of body, arms, hands,
neck, head and face ; but is small, far below the average
size of the Anglo-Saxon in this State, but is of durable
temperament and elastic physical constitution. He is of
unostentatious grace, self reliance, somewhat severe dig-
nity, and a presence that forbids familiar, vulgar approach.
He is of pure public and private character, and a Chris-
tian. His career as a Whig leader and as representative
in Congress was popular ; and his research and learning
adorn the early volumes of the supreme court reports,
where his opinions are recorded, and which take high
rank with American jurists.
He is contemporary of Samuel Terry Bailey, of Macon ;
and Dawson, with Francis H. Cone, of Greensboro ; both
lawyers of superior ability, learning and large success, of
northern birth who came in early life to this State, but
who differ widely from each other. Bailey's habits of
thought, study, and practice caused him to stand some-
what aloof from the brethren in social life, but he was him-
self always thoroughly prepared, and brought to every
contest a large measure of severe criticism.
Cone, large and portly, with a piercing black eye, was
always free and full in conference ; bold, confident and
defiant in argument and tactics before any court, high or
low, or the jury. As lawyer, judge, legislator, he was
thorough and profound ; and in social life, as playful as a
boy. His humor is a perennial spring, and his anecdotes
take the widest range, from the grave and learned, to the
ridiculous and gross. As a Democratic leader he lost
caste with the people after his encounter and stabbing
Mr. Stephens, in 1S48.
Judge Nesbit is also contemporary at Macon with Ab-
salom H. Chappell, a man of tall and stately dignity, and
MY COXTEMPOR ARIES.— 1857. 65
great integrity, as well as learning and ability. Like
most of the great old lawyers, he is not inclined to accept
any legal proposition as settled ; but prepares thoroughly
on authority to support every possibly disputed premise,
and exhausts every point in debate, never considering
his work done until the edifice of an unanswerable and
exhaustive argument is complete.
Three of the ablest men of upper Georgia are at Rome:
Augustus R. Wright, John W. H. Underwood, and John
Ramsey Alexander.
Wright is of somewhat spare and erect, but of strong
and durable as well as active body ; is of the sanguo-ner-
vous-bilious temperament, full of emotion, impetuous and
rapid in all his mental operations. lie loves truth and
despises consistency when the two seem to come in con-
flict. Has the reputation of being changeable in religion
and politics, having in turn been a preacher of the Meth-
odists and Baptists, and a leader of the Whig and Demo-
cratic parties. He is a man of learning as well as accu-
rate thought, never was a student in the ordinary
acceptation of the word, for he is a genius, takes in, ab-
sorbs and comprehends things without mental plodding.
His speeches always draw crowds, at the bar and on the
hustings ; full of wit and humor, with a thorough under-
standing of human passion and sympathy. His voice is
like a clarion in clearness and expansive power; and in
issues that call forth his great exertions his eloquence
rises to grandeur and sublimity.
Underwood has the advantage and disadvantage of hav-
ing a distinguished father in the same profession. The
one to be put forward under favorable auspices in youth,
the other the tardiness with which the public accepts the
conclusion that the son is equal to the father in real merit
66 MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857.
and ability; because not all the sons of great men are
great ; and even where they inherit the parental mind,
by reason of the care and exemption from toil the father's
success brings to the sons, and the groundless confidence
reposed in ancestral greatness as a safe passage through
the world, the sons often fail ; but not so of Underwood.
He is of fine form and person, of fluent language and
delivery in speeches and in conversation. Ilis voice is
clear and distinct, though not capable like Wright's of ex-
panding and enlarging in volume with the passion and
power of the oration. But, nevertheless, he is a powerful
and effective advocate and stump speaker, a learned and
able lawyer and counsellor. His father's wit is a thunder-
bolt that regards not the company or presence, and con-
sults no man's opinions or feelings. His is the gentle
and refreshing breeze, and sometimes almost a gale, that
fans and cools and enlivens all men, and blows nobody ill.
Alexander is not distinguished for wit nor eloquence, but
is a sound and safe counsellor and effective and logical
advocate whom passion never betrays into error ; a safe
ally and a dreaded foe ; open, candid, true and unimpas-
sioned. All three of the men are of pure private character.
Henry K. Jackson, of Savannah, and William Hope
Hull, are men of rare production, universal confidence,
and general admiration. The first the cousin, the latter
the neighbor, and both life-long bosom friends, of Howell
Cobb, and both Democrats from youth. Hull is muqh
like Cobb in size and form, without fiivor of features, and
in breadth, quickness, and power of mind, which has been
confined mainly to the law practice.
Jackson was an ardent and impassioned student and
advocate, full of ambition and chivalry, and proud custo-
dian of the honor and dauntless courage as well as ability
MY CONTEMPORAEIES.— 1857. 67
of his historic family. He was a gallant commander of a
Georgia regiment in the late Mexican war ; has been an
able and inflexible judge, and an eloquent and effective
Democratic orator. He is, withal, a man of literary taste
and cultivation, and of rare poetic gifts. As lawyer,
scholar, and patriot, he is loved by his able associates, se-
niors and juniors, of the Savannah bar, and by the people
of the State.
Among the multitude of able and promising of the
younger class of my seniors, I mention particularly six a
little older than myself, and nearly of equal ages, who are
endowed naturally with great minds, each having the
most abundant capacity to sustain himself in any height
to which the political seas may drift, or the storms of
party drive him. Robert G. Harper, and Lucius Q. C. La-
mar, of Newton; Thomas R. R. Cobb, of Clarke; Linton
Stephens, of Hancock ; Benjamin H. Hill, of Troup ; and
Joseph E. Brown, of Cherokee county.
It is rare to find among so large a number approxi-
mating them, in any State or country, such a number of
contemporaries who are the equals of these ; and they all
differ from each other in mind and temper.
Harper and Lamar, after graduating at Emory college
and tarrying in the vestibule of court till their beards
grew, set out as partners in law practice at Covington.
Harper is gentle and modest, but firm, resolute, and per-
sistent. The rays of the diamond, sparkle more brightly
as the scintillations of genius are struck by action and
contact, and as the obscuring rubbish of modesty and
unpretension is thrown aside, leaving bare to the gaze of
the most astute critic the God-made man of worth ; and
yet he is less known, less appreciated, applauded and
honored than the others.
68 MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857.
Lucius Lamar is of over-endowed brain and nerve
power, is charged as if by a galvanic battery in all his
physical and mental composition when called forth to
make intellectual effort. Impetuous from inherited love
of right, and antipathy to wrong; honest himself, -he
demands more than mortal effort and ambition can achieve;
that is, to see all other men true and honest. No power
is too high to be questioned, no influence potent enough
to awe him. Disappointment ma^y await, but its augurs
have no terrors for the brave heart and buoyant hopes of
this young man eloquent, who comes heralded by pa-
rental greatness and powerful family prestige.
Thomas Cobb and Linton Stephens are alike in one in-
cident and barrier to their hopes of public political
honors. They have each a senior brother among the pop-
ular and ambitious men of the period ; each has an idol
in his own household, above self and next to the Deity.
Cobb is a great, learned, laborious, untiring, ambitious
lawyer, while his brother Howell, with a larger brain but
none the more powerful, carries all his plans and aims
into the line of political promotion ; and the junior is
none the less fit for high position and power in the State.
Linton Stephens differs from his brother in all but
great mind, courage, integrity and fraternal devotion.
Alexander has always, when composed, looked like he was
almost ready for the undertaker. Linton has a bilious,
nervous composition, with a strong frame and hard mus-
cles that can stand labor and endure exposure. He is
brave, and despises the opposite quality; confident in his
own judgment, and contemns the feeble reasoning power
that reaches an opposite conclusion. Careless in manner
and in dress, fears no personal opposition or danger, and
carries his life in his hand for the friends he confides in
MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857. 69
and loves, yet assails or invades none who assail or invade
not him. He is shaded by the fame of his brother, but
for powerful, severe logic, and aggressive, persistent, ex-
haustive analysis and argument he has but few equals in
the State.
Benjamin H. Hill is one of the rare young men of the
age, and exceeds them all in the most coveted and courted
gift of political aspirants, — popular eloquence. He has
full self control upon all emergencies, at the bar of the
supreme court, before the judge of the circuit, or the jury,
where he is irresistible, and in the popular meetings, large
and small.
Nature made him an orator by giving him a command-
ing and attractive person, a large and active brain, and
unbounded capacity for utterance. He has the physi-
cal power to rise with his own estimate of the magnitude
of his theme, and I have never seen his spirit fag or his
voice fail to meet the enormous demands of his fruitful
imagination. He has the courage to assert any premises
that may be needed, and it puzzles the severest critics to
detect the error of argumentation to sustain what he as-
serts.
Most of the old party leaders in opposition to the De-
mocracy have come over to us, and Hill has a limitless
field in which to exert his power before the people in op-
posing the resistless career of the party.
Joseph E. Brown has been reared in the mountain dis-
trict of Cherokee, Georgia ; comes of the race of hardy,
honest and true men of the times. He has the larorest
and best balanced brain of all the young men of the State
and scarcely has an equal in energy and perseverance.
As orator, in the popular and appropriate understand-
ing of the term, he is barely the equal of either of the
70 MY COXTEMPORAEIES.— 1857.
five alluded to ; but as a debater he is the inferior of none,
and the superior of most of them. He is never caught
unprepared, and never meets an emergency, however sud-
den or great, which he cannot summon resources to meet.
Never is a blow aimed at him or his cause, that he can-
not ward off or parry. He was a lawyer at an early pe-
riod of life, and almost as soon, among the front and able
lawyers of Cherokee, Georgia, feared and respected for his
masterly powers. He is cautious, watchful, never tires,
or leaves any means untried which promise success, and
never leaves a fortress or battery of his adversary unas-
sailed.
An ardent Democrat from his boyhood, a leading mem-
ber of the State Senate at twenty-eight years of age, pres-
idential elector at thirty-two ; active in all the popular
elections and debates since he came to manhood, he pos-
sessed the full confidence and challenged the full support
of his party in the election for the judgeship, an office not
political, against the popular incumbent, David Irwin, one
of the ablest among the old judges and one of the purest
and best men of the circuit. The bitterness and preju-
dice growing out of the race, connected as it was with
the political strife between the Democratic and American
parties, soon subsided after he entered on the discharge
of official duties. Firm, impartial, vigilant, sober, moral,
fearless in the administration of civil and criminal law,
the people of both parties approve and sanction his elec-
tion. Thorough in knowledge of the law and practice,
and with abilities that would distinguish him in any court
of the State, the lawyers pronounce him an able judge.
There are four men in the State to whom the public
mind turns as naturally, when the matter of intellectual
greatness, moral and political power with reference to our
MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857. 7i
own men, as it has done to the trio of Clay, Calhoun and
Webster in the national firmament. These are Alexan-
der H. Stephens and Robert Toombs of the Whigs, and
Herschel V. Johnson and Howell Cobb of the Democrats.
Cobb is the youngest, now forty-two years old. He
was a college graduate, a lawyer, and the solicitor of his
circuit before he was twenty-two years old ; was elected
to Congress and served four consecutive terms and was
speaker of the House, at the age of thirty-four. Differing
from Governor Towns, Ex-governor Charles J. McDonald,
Walter T. Colquitt, Herschel V. Johnson, and a majority
of the leading Democrats upon the proper course for the
Southern States to pursue, upon the great territorial
slavery compromise of 1850, and agreeing with Berrien,
Jenkins, Toombs, Stephens, and the majority of leading
Whigs of the State who favored accepting it as a final ad-
justment, he came home, advocated and defended the
measure known as the omnibus bill, justified the national
government in adopting it, and opposed all ideas of resist-
ance to it on the part of the people of the slaveholding
States.
The General Assembly called a State convention of del-
egates, to be elected by the people, to determine the course
that Georgia would take on account of the passage of the
bill by Congress ; the points of which were : abolition of
the slave trade in the District of Columbia, and a law to
carry into effect the provisions of the Federal constitution
for the restoration of fugitive slaves in the free States to
their owners in the slave States; the admission of Cali-
fornia as a State with an anti-slavery constitution, alleged
to be fraudulent ; the organization of the territories of
New Mexico and Utah, and the payment of $3,000,000
to Texas to cede part of her slave territory to New Mexico.
72 MY CONTEMPOEARIES.— 1857.
Many of the old Whig and Democratic leaders accepted
Feats in the convention ; some of the old Whigs as South-
ern Rights men, but the most of them adhering to the
Union ; some of the old Democrats as Union men, but
the majority as opposed to submitting without resentment
or resistance in some form to the injustice and aggressive
spirit of the North and the general government toward
the South and the institution of slavery.
In this convention, Charles J. Jenkins was the Madison
" come to judgment." He stood like a great, towering
and impassable statue by the paths that seemed to lead
to degradation and humility on the one side, or to disor-
der and strife on the other. He rose above the stratum
of the unconditional submissionists, and bowed the tall
heads of the immediate resistance and secession men to
the true level on which all could meet without dishonor
and without revolution. The address and resolutions ac-
cepting the settlement, and setting forth contingencies
for resistance in the future, were adopted, and the conven-
tion dissolved. But the issues that had called it into be-
ing had dissolved for the present the organization of the
national Democratic and Whig parties in the State. At
the State election of 1851, the parties were Union, com-
posed of the majority of old Whigs and minority of old
Democrats ; and Southern Rights, composed of a majority
of old Democrats and minority of old Whigs. Cobb ac-
cepted the candidacy of the Union party, and Charles J.
McDonald of the Southern Rights party, for governor.
The contest was exciting and the discussions on the
hustings were of the kind, and by the men, to arouse
popular passion to its utmost height. McDonald was not
a popular orator like Johnson and other Democratic lead-
ers and Southern Rights Whigs. The incomparable Walter
MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857. 73
T. Colquitt was still in the splendor of his oratorical
powers. McDonald was supported by many of the most
popular and gifted men of the State.
Cobb made the canvass in person, and was supported
by the matchless and irresistible eloquence and vast per-
sonal influence of Toombs, Stephens, Berrien, Jenkins,
and others. He was sustained by some of the old Dem-
ocratic leaders, among the most popular of whom was
John Henry Lumpkin.
The people were excited and resentful, but loyal to the
Union. At heart they were opposed to submission to
wrong, but saw no method of resistance but revolution
and violence, to which they were unwilling to resort for
existing causes. The discussion before them tended to
strengthen this feeling; and the popular judgment in fa-
vor of accepting and acquiescing in the compromise set-
tlement. The cause of Cobb gathered strength, and that
of McDonald declined ; and when the election came, the
majority was overwhelming for Cobb.
The Lescislature elected at the same time was also over-
whelmingly of the constitutional Union type, based on
the acceptance of the settlement and preservation of the
Union on the terms set forth by the convention known
as the Georgia platform ; and thus ended the dispute
about resisting the government at this time.
The termination of the issues that called the Union and
Southern Rights parties into existence dissolved again
their elements, and revived the old party organizations.
The Union Democrats aligned themselves with their na-
tional party for the presidential election of 1852; and
the Whigs of the Union party rejoined their national
allies.
Governor Cobb soon found himself in antagonism to the
74 MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857.
leading men who had contributed most to place him in
power, and in full accord and sympathy with the public
men who had been his former political allies, but many
of them vehement in opposition to him as a Union Demo-
cratic leader.
When the national bugles were sounded, summoning
the clans to the national conventions, the old Whigs and
old Democrats, having accomplished their joint aim on a
temporary question, parted in peace. The old Democrats
who had learned to love their new allies, the Southern
Rights Whigs, went with the few that still adhered, in the
most perfect harmony and confidence, into the affiiliation
of the national Democracy. They had been in a minority
as Southern Rights men, but soon found themselves in the
majority as re-organized Democrats ; and found themselves
elevated above their former triumphant Union Whig op-
ponents by having a national and State government, both
Democratic ; Franklin Pierce was president, and Howell
Cobb governor.
As the term drew to a close, Cobb had served the pur-
poses of his candidacy and election. He preferred the
national to the State service, and chose to retire volun-
tarily from the executive office.
The old Democrats of the State had now the opportu-
nity to honor one of the men who had stood firmly for
the cause of the South, and had gone down defiantly with
the southern wing of the party, but who was then in ac-
cord with all the principles and aims of the national
party ; and the banner was confided to Herschel V. John-
son.
The old AVhigs who had reunited with their national
party in 1852, were disappointed in the result of their
presidential nomination, General Winfield Scott. They
MY CONTEMPORAEIES.— 1857. 75
were not satisfied with the party platform adopted, or
General Scott's letter of acceptance. Taking the man
and his antecedents, the platform of resolutions declaring
the principles and policy of the national party, and the
letter of the candidate, all into critical review, they re-
garded the action of the party in national convention as
giving effect to the anti-slavery and anti-southern procliv-
ities of a large portion of the national Whigs. Those
leaders, prominent for the presidential office, who were
constitutional in political creed, regardless of their abstract
opinions of slavery, had been thrown overboard ; and to
their minds, as described and expressed by themselves,
the national party was abolitionized, and unsafe for the
South.
Mr. Stephens, Mr. Toombs, Mr. Jenkins, who had been
reared, and become leaders, and won their laurels in the
battles of the party, supported and seconded by many of
the old Whigs of this and other southern States, rebelled,
and refused to support the candidate and the party as or-
ganized and championed.
The result was a vote expressive of their principles, to
which, as Whigs, they had long adhered ; and also of
their opposition to the national Democracy with Franklin
Pierce as the candidate, and which was intended to be
complimentary to the men for whom they voted — Daniel
Webster, who died after he was nominated and before the
election, and Charles J. Jenkins, the author of the Geor-
gia platform.
There were a few men in this and other Southern States
too extreme in their pro-slavery and sectional feelings
and opinions to affiliate so soon with either of the national
parties, who cast their votes for George M. Troup of
Georgia, and General John A. Quitman of Mississippi.
76 MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857.
But in 1853 the chasm that had stood open, and di-
vided the Scott and the Webster Whigs in this State had
been closed, and the wounds inflicted on each other in
the temporary breach had been healed ; and with great
union and enthusiasm they rallied to the support of
Charles J. Jenkins, for governor, against Herschel V.
Johnson.
The canvass was a manly and masterly one, as it was
bound to be with such men for leaders, supported as they
were by the able and popular men of their respective par-
ties. Cobb, who had encountered the opposition of John-
son while a Union candidate for governor, now espoused
his cause as a Democratic candidate, and that of the party
candidates for Cono-ress and the Leo-islature. Mr. Ste-
phens and Mr. Toombs gave to Jenkins a support intensi-
fied by cordial agreement in principles and in aims, and
a lifelong friendship for the man himself. The speakers
and the press aligned themselves with the respective par-
ties in all the ardor and zeal of ancient friendship and
hatred.
Herschel V. Johnson, three years senior to Howell Cobb,
then approaching forty-one years of age, was then
nominated judge of the Ocmulgee circuit, though he never
had been extensively engaged in the law practice prepar-
atory to judicial duties. He had been a close and severe
student, and from youth an ardent Democrat; and b}^ his
probity and virtue, his freedom from all that could arm
an adversary with charges to assail his private character,
and by his fearless and masterly eloquence in the debates
of his party, like Toombs, Stephens and Cobb had leaped
to the very front in early life. He had been made prom-
inent for the office in 1845 when he was thirty-three years
old and yielded voluntarily to Mathew Hall ^McAlister of
MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857. 77
Savannah, who was defeated in the election by the Whig
candidate, then governor, George W. Crawford. Again,
1847, he withdrew in favor of George W. Towns, who
while in office appointed him United States senator, to fill
the seat made vacant by the resignation of Mr. Colquitt,
where he soon achieved a brilliant reputation as orator
and debater.
Johnson, to be known and appreciated, must be well
known. We do not, in our approach to him, reach the
warm strata and temperature of his heart and soul until
we get close to him. Admiring his intellect, his solid
judgment and honesty, enthused by his wonderful powers
as a popular speaker, we do not feel invited, as by the air
and manner of many of our public men, to come up and
be a close, warm-hearted and confiding friend. This cause
was felt strongly in his relations with the men of his own
party. He has been conscious that they could not assail
his private or public character or deny his great merit .
and valuable public services; that he was perhaps stand-
ing in the way of many aspirants, hence did not have as
cordial support for himself as he has uniformly rendered
to others.
But a man endowed as he was by nature, cultivated
by study and learning, trained by many hard fought con-
tests with the political foe, who is in sympathy with the
Democratic masses, as he has ever been, needs no help
from party leaders where he can be seen and heard. He
never made the mistake of underrating his adversary.
He had debated with all the Whig leaders ; knew their
powers ; knew Jenkins to be a man of great ability and
unassailable character. He assured me, at the hotel in
Rome, when about going out to meet him the first time
in debate after their respective nomination, that he feared
78 MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857.
his power, and dreaded the momentous contact with so
able and pure a man.
The crowd w^as large; and the speeches in full keeping
with the intellectual giants who had met. Johnson was-
more in sympathy with the masses upon the issues dis-
cussed, the merits of the national Whig and Democratic
parties. His style of enunciation was more exciting, and
he had at least a partial triumph over his adversary, but
such a triumph as wavered with the conflicting emotions
of great masses of people, at that time not fully settled
and determined in their final course.
Johnson had been a Southern Eights Democrat, and
was denounced as what was known as " fire-eater," and
that class of men had been defeated and had grown into
disfavor ; but before being a " fire-eater " he had been a life-
long national Democrat, and was then struggling to restore
the power of the national Democracy in the State. Jen-
kins, the candidate of the Whigs, had all this to confront,
with all his prestige as a union man and restorer of peace
between the sections as author of the Georgia platform.
The interest in the canvaes did not abate at the election,
and the result was so close that all doubt and uncertainty
were only dispelled by an official count.
The Democratic Legislature elected with Johnson had
the election of a senator. The retiring Gov. Cobb and
his defeated Democratic competitor, Charles J. McDonald,
were again rivals in competition for the distinguishing
honor, either of whom would have made an acceptable
senator ; either could have been easily nominated in the
party caucus but for the candidacy of the other, and as
easily elected on joint ballot.
The Southern Rights Democrats and the new allies,
the Southern Rights Whigs, were willing to accept the
MY COXTEMPORAEIES.— 1857. 79
aid and powerful influence of Cobb in the exciting and
doubtful contest to restore the party to power, but not
to bestow the coveted honor of the senatorship upon him.
The caucus put forward McDonald as the candidate and
Cobb retired, but all his friends in the Legislature did not
vote for the nominee, and after protracted ballotings Mc-
Donald finally failed to get a majority vote. The result
was a compromise of the alienated factions on Hon. Alfred
Iverson as senator. Cobb went bacl<; temporarily into
private life, and at the next election in 1855 went back
to the H >use from his district. McDonald has been placed
on the supreme court bench, for which his native capac-
ities and large experience and learning eminently qualify
him.
The country, however, was not to remain at rest. The
disengaged elements of the Whig party with the co-oper-
ation of disaffected and dissatisfied Democrats organized a
new party combining most of the tenets of the Whig
party and based upon opposition to the right of foreign
born citizens and members of the Catholic church to hold
office. 'Ihe fatal experiment was tried of a popular party
organized to control the republican government of the
Union and of the States in secret lodges, and concealing
the identity of the membership from the public. It was
first known and spoken of as the " Know Nothing " party,
a cognomen assumed, and applied on account of the obli-
gation of the members to "know nothing " when interro-
gated as to the membership, the organization, and move-
ments of the party. This was a feature which when dis-
covered and ventilated soon became more odious to the
popular mind than the leaders and speakers were ever
able to make Catholics and foreigners.
When new and untried it was popular and captivating
80 MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857.
to men out of office and power. It promised reform of
abuses and promotion to office, and bid fair to sweep the
Democracy from their reign of authority. In this State it
gained many Democrats but lost more largely of influen-
tial Whigs. Mr. Stephens opposed it and fought all its
principles and aims with a zeal and power peculiar to
himself He was seconded by Mr. Toombs and many
prominent old Whigs, who were for the time being called
Anti-Know Nothings and Anti-Americans, as the new
party when fully developed took the name of American
party.
But in the canvass of 1856 the Anti-Know Nothing
Whigs all took open ground as Democrats in the support
of Mr, Buchanan for the presidency. Perhaps no canvass
in the State has ever exceeded that of 1855 in point of
masterly discussion before the people. Gov. Johnson then
a candidate for re-election against Hon. Garnett Andrews
of Wilkes county, the nominee of the American party,
and Basil H. Overby, the candidate of the Temperance
Reform and Prohibition party, spoke all over the State.
He was in full health and in the zenith of his oratorical
glory. Cobb, who was a candidate in his own district
where his' election was assured, canvassed other parts of
the State with the most withering orations to large mass
meetings. Toombs brought all his powers to bear to en-
lighten the public mind and beat down the new party.
They were aided by many able speakers of both the old
parties of less distinction.
The old Whig leaders having refused to bear the stand-
ard and colors of the new American, and having joined
their ancient foes in the warfare upon the new bantling,
were treated with strong resentment b}^ their old party
friends, who called out the remaining leaders, and fol-
MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857. 81
lowed them with great enthusiasm. Andrews, their can-
didate, Hke McDonald, was not a popular orator, and such
was the case with several of their candidates for Congress.
Hence the services of those who could speak were in great
demand. Dr. H. V. M. Miller, " Demosthenes of the moun-
tains," exceeded if possible the past brilliancy and elo-
quence that had given him the distinguishing title in his
orations to large assemblages of the people. Benjamin
H. Hill was a candidate for Congress, and, though defeated
by Judge Warner, added to the brilliant reputation he
had as lawyer that of one of the most powerful popular
orators in the State. The admiration of his party men
for him arose almost to idolatry.
When the national canvass of 1856, which resulted in
the election of Mr. Buchanan, as president, came on, the
Democrats had defeated the Whigs and Americans in
turn, and were in full power in the State, having a ma-
jority of the votes of the State in the ranks and a major-
ity of the popular old Whig leaders. They have had an
easy victory so far as relates to the vote of Georgia, though
a hard struggle in other parts of the Union. Mr. Bu-
chanan goes into power with the highest prospects of a
popular administration.
In these elections of 1855 nnd 1856 the Democratic
party opposed the proscriptive ideas of the Know Nothing
or American party based on religious opinion and place of
birth. The party was also in accord with the settlement
by Congress of the subject of slavery in the Territorial
government, as had been provided in the acts organizing
Kansas and Nebraska territories, and enabling the people
to form State governments repealing restrictions and
leaving them to establish, protect, tolerate, or refuse and
reject the institution of slavery without hindrance or
82 MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857.
intervention by Congress or the Executive Government
of the United States. The old issues of the Whig and
Democratic parties had nearly all received a historic solu-
tion ; and on these new ones the Whig leaders referred to
could freely harmonize with the Democrats. Their own
National party had drifted nearer and nearer the whirl-
pool of abolition ; and they could have no alliance with it
consistent with their views of constitutional relations be-
tween the States and sections of the Union and fidelity
to the slaveholding South. Hence their afiiliation with
National Democracy was patriotic and cordial.
The four men under review, all perhaps nearly equal
in many respects, are essentially different in others, and
each in some particulars is greater than all the rest. Like
the Dougherty, Lumpkin, Hansell, Warren, and Hill
brothers, and Hugh Haralson, Mark A. Cooper, David J.
Bailey, and many others, three of these are men of fine
physical proportions and form, and will in this respect
compare favorably with Webster, Hunter, and Brecken-
ridge ; Toombs is physically the most faultless, and has only
to be seen in any presence to attract attention and admi-
ration ; Johnson is scarcely less perfect ; Cobb lacks height
to make him the equal of either, and is more in physical
mould like Silas Wright, and Thomas H. Benton. Ste-
phens is the opposite to them all in every part of his physi-
cal frame, and is as rare for his physical frailty as Toombs
for physical perfection; their confidence in each other
and love borders on that of parental ardor in disinterest-
edness.
Stephens is encumbered by his pride of consistency ;
Toombs wears his as a loose summer gown, defies public
opinion and criticism, despises his foes, and defies his
friends if they dijGfer from him, never dodges a bolt aimed
MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857. 83
at him for want of consistency, but goes direct in search
of the truth of the matter as now seen and understood,
and prides as much in confuting his own former errors as
those of other men.
Stephens is formal in his reasoning processes, parlia-
mentary in mbdes of procedure, and courteous to his ad-
versaries ; lies in defiant manly coil like the rattlesnake,
and lets all unintruding foes pass unharmed, but strikes
with unerring aim and deadly fang whomsoever dares
to assail him, his positions, or the party under his lead.
Toombs defies time, place, and circumstance, as does
the storm when the winds are unchained. Stephens has
method, art, consistency, as well as vigor and correctness
of thou2:ht ; Toombs has o-iant strengrth combined with
electric quickness and brevity. Under his magic brain
power figures are conceived, born, and achieve their talis-
manic effect upon admiring men in a moment of time.
All things considered, for pure intellectual power Toombs
scarcely has a peer. And when they are combined
with his wonderful power of utterance and daring cour-
age they would make a powerful rival in any popular
government. From early life they gave him prominence
in the House, and now give him rank among the ablest
men of the Senate.
Stephens, with his bodily frailty and weakness and his
brain power, possesses faculties of person of the rarest be-
stowed on men. His voice is that of a woman in tone but
of a man in extent before he is aroused. Then his pale feat-
ures and emaciated frame without muscles invite sym-
pathy and dread of physical collapse and failure, from
strangers who have not heard him and witnessed his tri-
umphs. The eye, that lies in somewhat melancholy ra-
diance when at rest, like his placid and confident mind,
84 MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857.
begins with his increase of strength and warmth of body
to glow Avith unearthly brilliancy. He gathers physical
power as the surging of the awakening brain heaves
ao-ainst its barriers, and all the muscular, the fibrous, and
nervous man rises from the ghost-like to the God-like.
The voice glides from the combined tone of the flute and
nightingale to the volume of a speaking angel of light
and intelligence. His audience passes under the magic
power of eloquence, and there he holds them at his will.
The men w^ho heard him on the hustings from 1843 to
1856, who survive and see this florid picture, will pro-
nounce it not overdrawn. But he enthused his own and
enraged the opposing party. His friends loved and wor-
shipped. His enemies admired his masterly powers,
dreaded his fearful assaults, and hated his party for hav-
ing such a formidable and tormenting leader.
But many of the grandest flights of eloquence I have
witnessed and felt were by Herschel V. Johnson. He pos-
sesses physical manhood, grandeur, and beauty like
Toombs when aroused, and like Stephens his voice gains
compass, power, and melody as he ascends on the wings of
unchained fancy, and sways alike the judgment and emo-
tions of men. His logic is not stronger, but not so brief
as that of Toombs ; both like Stephens are masters of in-
vective. Stephens and Toombs have anecdote ; Johnson
and Cobb, like Douglas and Calhoun and Andrew Johnson,
deal in earnest, persistent argument and reason that go
direct to the mind, the heart, and sentiments of men. But
Johnson's severity often drives his enemies into closer
alliance against him.
Cobb either has no such power, or, from superior wis-
dom and more human kindness in his heart, never commits
such mistakes for the cause and the party of which he
MY CONTEMPOEAEIES.— 1867. 85
is champion. Those who hear him, no matter whether
of his or the opposing party, listen to him with or without
their consent. They are chained by the presence of a
great masterly mind and powerful person charged with
the commission of pleading the cause of a common coun-
try and a brotherhood of people, and guided by the
promptings of sincerity and the love of truth, but with
less music and power of voice, and grace of motion than
some of the others ; a man who always rises above the
tricks of the demao-oo^ue and the falsehood of the unscru-
pulous panderer to popular ignorance and prejudice.
While he treats his own cause with masterly power and
unwavering fidelity, he treats his foe fairly. And this
makes him perhaps the most effective and successful
popular speaker of the four. While many may honestly
differ from this judgment, none who are candid will deny
his great power over the people through his wonderful
gifts as a popular speaker.
Canvass of 1857.
Since the chapter on " Contemporaries " was written, the
parties have passed through a singularly organized and
exciting canvass for the office of governor, and by oppo-
site causes brought out two young men as candidates.
The Whigs having been defeated in 1852, and again in
1853, the party having been absorbed in this State by the
new American party in 1855, and suffered defeat under
that organization, had lost the more powerful and promi-
nent party leaders in 1856, and hence was a hopeless
minority at the time of the election of Prest. Buchanan.
The result was, the remaining old and prominent men of
the party seemed not to desire a hopeless candidacy ; but
the party, composed as it was of a large minority, and of a
86 MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857.
large volume of public intelligence, virtue, and patriotism,
was not willing to abandon the organization, and yield
to the dominant Democratic party without a manly strug-
gle to regain power.
Their convention summoned to the lead and placed the
banner in the hands of the zealous, gifted and eloquent
Benjamin H. Hill.
The Democratic party being in the ascendency, and hav-
ing a redundancy of men among the old leaders who cov-
eted the honor of being Governor, was greatly troubled in
convention to unite on any one of the aspiring candidates
for a nomination, James Gardner, Henry G. Lamar, Wm.
H. Stiles, Hiram Warner, and John Henry Lumpkin, and a
number of outstanding men, ready to accept a candidacy,
under the usage of compromising disputes among promi-
nent men by the nomination of a man not known as a
candidate.
James Gardner was heralded by a long and brilliant
reputation as editor of The ConstiiiitionaUst newspaper at
Augusta, and had contributed largely for many years to
the Democratic victories of the State by his power as a
political writer ; had come in possession of fortune, and
desired the honor of retiring under the eclat of a nomina-
tion by his party, for the highest office in the gift of the
State. He was seconded and supported actively and unan-
imously, by the Democratic leaders in that part of the
State.
Henry G. Lamar is a man of ripe age, fair abilities,
sterling integrity, high sense of personal honor, eminently
patriotic, and sound in the Democratic faith, and true
to the South, and the recipient of a powerful family influ-
ence as well as that of his life-long personal friendships
among the public men in his part of the State.
MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857. 87
Hiram Warner came from the North in early youth,
identified himself with the State, and has been a steady
and reliable Democrat from that time to the present.
In early life he served with distinction in the Legislature,
and later he served as judge of his circuit, three terms,
and a term of eight years as judge of the supreme court,
in addition to his long and successful career when out of
office as a lawyer in western Georgia. He also served
with great ability as representative in the last Congress.
And at different periods of life has been recommended
for this office. His character for ability, fidelity, conser-
vatism, and personal honesty gave him many strong
friends and supporters for this nomination.
William H. Stiles had been a member of Congress on
the general Democratic ticket before the State was laid
off into cono-ressional districts ; a minister to Austria four
years, under President Polk, residing at Vienna, and is a
man of erect form, pleasing person, courtly style, and
polished manner of popular oratory ; a true and chivalrous
repi^sentative of southern Democracy, supported by the
elegant and refined people of Savannah.
John Henry, nephew to Wilson and Joseph Henry
Lumpkin, son of an honest primitive Baptist preacher,
George Lumpkin, came to Cherokee, Georgia, from Ogle-
thorpe County, when young. Has been solicitor and
judge of his circuit, and several times member of Con-
gress, and has long been a Democratic leader of great
personal cleverness and popularity in this part of the
State. And in this contest for a nomination to the office,
which, above all others, he has long coveted, he was the
choice of this part of the State, with many warm support-
ers in other sections.
While any one of them would have been an acceptable
88 MY CONTEMPORAEIES.— 1857.
man to the people, the antagonisms between their friends
in the convention were so strong as to prevent the nom-
ination of either, and as a sequence to defeat them all.
Tt resulted after a long session, and repeated fruitless bal-
lotings, in throwing all overboard, and nominating by
acclamation, upon the recommendation of a special select
committee, the present Governor of Georgia,
Joseph Emerson Brown,
of whom mj purpose to prosecute the history of the State
will impose the most pleasant duty to write more at large.
The friends and adherents of the defeated candidates,
notwithstanding the evidences of discontent that at first
gave encouragement to the opposition party under Mr.
Hill, in the course of the canvass gradually yielded to Mr.
Brown their cordial and united support, and the party
of Mr. Hill, the Whig, American, or opposition party as it
is called, voted for him as enthusiastically even in the face
of admitted numerical strength in the Democratic ranks.
The canvass was a heavy one for the candidates, and
was conducted with great zeal and ability. Hill with in-
cisive tactics, his stirring and impressive eloquence, ap-
pealed to the prejudices and the solidifying sentiments
of his own party with a resume of its contests and achieve-
ments, and to the supposed disaffecting elements of the
Democracy; arraigned the party which had been in
power in the Union and in the State upon the current
newspaper charges of maladministration and abuse of
power and discretion. The administration of the Western
& Atlantic railroad was reviewed with terrible scathing,
because it was alleged that it had been used for party
purposes and to promote favorites to the waste of public
finances and the injury of the State.
MY CONTEMPOK ARIES.— 1857. 89
Brown with his perseverance, calmness, composure, and
confidence as well as moral and physical courage, in his
convincing reason and powerful argumentation addressed
the assembled masses in every part of the State, and tri-
umphantly defended the party who had committed the
banner to his hand to lead.
He defended the party with which he had been identi-
fied from his childhood, and whose principles were de-
rived from and based upon the constitution itself — the
party of a proud American ancestry, the projectors of
Constitutional Liberty and the founders of Republican
Government and makers of the Constitution itself — a
party whose administrations had been the chief source of
prosperity and development of a great country — the
nursery and school of statesmen, and the champion of
political justice and equality, and whose history was that
of unrivalled progress and development, and under
whose rule the United States had been the admiration of
the world abroad, and had drawn contributions of people,
of arts, science, and learning as well as of wealth, from
all parts of the globe. A party whose triumphs were not
of force or violence, but results of -reason and intelligence,
the force and effect of the love of truth and justice, and
enlightened public opinion.
His nomination was the defeat of the people's favorites
in the different parts of the State where he was, as well
as being a young man for so high a position, a personal
stranger to the masses of the people. That the ardent
friends of all the defeated aspirants should, before the
election, yield in his favor, and join in full accord and give
him a cordial and enthusiastic support, based on the
sanction and conviction that he was the strongest as well
as most suitable man of them all, is one of the features of
90 MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857.
the politics of this State which can only be explained on
the hypothesis that in the newly elected and installed,
and comparatively youthful, Governor the people have
discovered a man of destiny.
CHAPTER II.
Governor Joseph E. Brown's Early Life.
His rapid rise from the walks of humble private life,
obstructed by the disabilities of poverty, and the want of
early scholastic advantages which many of his contem-
poraries enjoyed, propelled by the self-sustaining energy
of a naturally great mind to the highest honor in the
gift of the State at the age of thirty-six years, invests his
personal history with an interest to the people of this and
future generations, and with a priceless value to mankind.
Many men in this State have risen rapidly, and come to
high official honors in early middle life. But they were
propelled by early advantages and propitious surround-
ings, and were obstructed by far less competition in other
able and popular men.
Cobb rose as rapidly, and began earlier in life to receive
public honors than Brown. But he grew up in the heart
of the State, enjoyed the training of her masters of learn-
ing in Franklin College at Athens, came up in the very
centre of political power and influence, and was heralded
by powerful family prestige, and sustained by worldly
fortune. Brown comes from the mountain district, the
remote interior of the State, far from railroads and tele-
graphs, and schools of learning, and the boasted intellect-
ual centres, and as far from political cabals and juntos.
His fortunes have not been speeded or his morals diluted
by the improvements of metropolitan life and society,
nor does he share too largely the sympathy of the older
92 GOV. JOSEPH E. BROWN'S EARLY LIFE.
men supplanted or postponed by his promotion and ele-
vation. He enters on his high office with but few political
props to uphold, and fewer dead weights to pull him down.
He is a comparatively frail man in body ; may die
young. Hence this note of his physique. He is five
feet ten inches in height, and weighs about one hundred
and thirty-five pounds ; he will not compare with Toombs
and Johnson in splendor of personal outline, or with Mark
A. Cooper, and John C. Breckenridge, in stately and
imposing height and form, and strength of body ; and still
he is further removed from the pattern of Alexander H.
Stephens.
His complexion is fair, though slightly swarthy, or
wanting in the ruddy, fresh glow of the young men of
active life, ph3^sical strength, and health. The hair and
beard are black, the latter of reasonable luxuriance, and
the former indicating a slight want of richness and depth
of soil. The head is unusually large, and seems to balance
w^ell on the vertebral column ; the brow expansive and in-
dicating in its conformation a native powerful mental organ-
ization with uncommon perceptive and reasoning faculties ;
the brain within seems never to tire, but is capable of pow-
erful and prolonged exertion ; the features are full and reg-
ular, with a cheek, chin, and nose in proportion with the
high and well-rounded forehead ; large square mouth and
thick lips; eyes of deep, dark blue when in repose, and radi-
ant under mental effort and excitement; his chest is too
thin for great strength of lungs ; he is not fitted for loud
and boisterous declamation ; his throat is weak, and subject
to irritation and disorder; his voice is loud and smooth in
tone, distinct and clear in pronunciation, which can be well
understood to the extent of the voice itself. But it can-
not be extended like that of Hill, Johnson, and Stephens.
GOV. JOSEPH E. BROWN'S EARLY LIFE. 93
Hence he is never very loud or vehement, even in the
most important speeches, but is always self-possessed,
self-reliant, confident, and deliberate. He is earnest and
emphatic in conversation, but never boisterous or noisy,
and never emphasizes his ideas with oaths or expletive
adjectives. Never deals in fiction or fancy in conveying
his thoughts to his hearers, but uses facts and reason, and
the most exhaustive argumentation, in the plainest,
and most approved English words. With the air of slow
and stately dignity, he has no military dash in his walk
and physical motions. Nothing of the swell of the nabob,
or dainty toilet of the fop; and nothing of the coarse, care-
less, and ruffian manner of the hoosier. Genteel, but not
showy ; neat, but not gaudy, is his style of dress and
address.
But few, perhaps, will be able, by following his exam-
ple in pursuit of public honors, to approximate his bril-
liant success. But there are points to be noted in his
personal habits, that all the world may profit by follow-
ing. He abstains habitually and totally from all intoxica-
ting drinks, and loathes and rejects tobacco in all its
forms and uses. And in my intimate and cordial friendly
relations with him in private life, I have never heard him
use a profane oath, or relate an obscene or vulgar anec-
dote.
In religion he is also a decided character, and is as firm
and pronounced a Baptist in church relations, as he is a
Democrat in politics. It is, however, a noteworthy fea-
ture of the religion of the churches, and the politics of
this State, that they never mix much with each other.
The politicians on their canvasses are not over-zealous
in religion ; and the men of the church in turn forget or
disregard its fellowship when they come to vote in party
94 GOV. JOSEPH E. BROWN'S EAELY LIFE.
elections. The Christians of the period love the cause of
religion and adhere strongly to their respective churches
when in the prosperous or revival state, and for all the
legitimate and scriptural purposes of their professions ;
but when the tide of politics arises they naturally drift,
every man with his own party.
Brown is a steady and consistent Baptist — the line of
distinction is as clear between Baptists and Methodists for
all religious purposes, as between Democrats and Whigs
for political purposes. The members of opposing churches
respect each other as Christian professors, and those of
opposing parties respect each other as citizens of a com-
mon government, while they stand aloof and act in their
separate organizations. Hill is a decided Methodist, but
was enthusiastically supported by all good Baptist whigs,
as Brown was by all good Methodist democrats. It is,
moreover, a very marked characteristic with both parties,
and exemplified by the public officers of both, whether
political, judicial, or ministerial, that in the discharge of
official duty they are sternly impartial between all the
religious denominations.
1879.
After the eventful period of twenty-two years — when
the then youthful statesman has grown gray, and his
career has been crowned with the most eminent suc-
cess— in public administration, so far as it was in the
power of the largest measure of abilities and the most
sleepless energy and perseverance to save the State from
disaster, and in the management of his own private fort-
une, as well as the public enterprises in which his business
capabilities have been employed, his life becomes invested
with an interest and value to mankind whenever and
GOV. JOSEPH E. BEOWN'S EARLY LIFE. 95
wherever genius and talent struggle with privations and
difficulties, and when masterly abilities and moral courage
attempt to confront and repress wrong and correct abuses ;
and where sagacity and forecast, almost prophetic, by
bold and daring originality, seek to wield the powers of
government in the interest and general improvement and
advantage of the people, instead of burdening them for
selfish and ambitious purposes.
Even the childhood and youth of a man whose grand
thoughts resulted in original plans for the general good,
but many of which were thwarted or retarded by de-
structive war, to be utilized and adopted by his succes-
sors, have an example so moral and sublime as to claim
the minute attention of aspiringyoung men in all countries.
His paternal ancestors were Scotch-Irish, his immediate
ancestor the descendant of emigrants, of honorable descent,
to Virginia upwards of a century ago. Like Crawford,
Forsyth, and many others who have adorned the State in
high positions, the ancestry was Virginian. The grand-
father, Joseph Brown, was a whig rebel, and took active
part in the war for independence. The father, Mackey
Brown, was a native of South Carolina, to which State
the ancestors had removed. In early life he removed
and became a citizen of Tennessee where he joined the
army in the brigade of General Carroll and served under
General Jackson in the campaign of New Orleans. There
was a consequent family admiration of Jackson as a hero
and statesman.
His mother's maiden name was Sally Rice, who was
also of Virginian ancestry. The Rice family having be-
fore emigrated to Tennessee, Mackey Brown and Sally
Rice were married and resided in that State until a short
time before the birth of Joseph Emerson, which took
96 GOV. JOSEPH E. BROWN'S EARLY LIFE.
place on the 15th day of April, 1821, in Pickens district,
South Carolina, whither the parents had removed. Dur-
ing his boyhood they removed to and settled in Union
county, which is in north-eastern Georgia. It was in that
remote mountain home, under the control of and in duti-
ful and affectionate obedience to steady religious Baptist
parents, that he passed his early youth. He labored in
the field and attended stock to aid in the family support
until he was nineteen vears of ap-e. He had been sent to
the country schools, had learned to read and write, and
had acquired some knowledge of arithmetic and the ele-
mentary branches of ordinary education.
It was only a spark of knowledge that struck the tin-
der of a great brain in the formative state ; but the igni-
tion took place, and the flame, which no adverse fortune
nor accumulation of discouraging circumstances could
extinguish, began to burn and brighten and to irradiate
its light and heat. The world has witnessed the rapid rise
and brilliant career of the mountain boy in the proudest
position in the gift of a great and appreciative people.
The labored steps of genius without fortune by which
he began to climb the rugged hill to fame and power,
though humble in themselves, are sublime in moral grand-
eur, and are heralds of hope and encouragement to mind
with energy and perseverance in all lands and all ages to
come.
He heard of Calhoun Academy in Anderson district,
South Carolina, under Wesley Leverett, a distinguished
teacher, and seeing the light as its rays came from the
east, he planned the grand enterprise of reaching and
passing a year in that school. He had no exchequer,
never had revelled on cash, the gift of parental bounty, or
from any source whatever ; never had clothing except the
GOV. JOSEPH E. BROWN'S EARLY LIFE. 97
common but neat domestic manufacture, had no horse of
his own to ride over the long mountain road to Anderson,
had no money to pay for board and tuition after he should
reach the place. His worldly estate consisted of a yoke
of steers.
He set out with the oxen with his j^ounger brother
James, now an eminent lawyer at Canton, to ride alter-
nately his father's plow-horse and drive the steers, and
to carry back the horse after the main part of the jour-
ney was completed — a distance of about one hundred and
thirty miles.
He sold his steers after arrival for eight months' board,
entered the school and went in debt for tuition. There
was no danger in trusting him then, and there has never
been since.
His earnest manner gained him credit, his energy and
enterprise enabled him to meet its demands promptly.
At the end of his board-contract he returned to Union
County, Georgia, and taught a three months' school, with
the proceeds of which he paid his tuition-debt and had
some money left to apply to the expenses of another
term.
He returned to Carolina and spent two years of close
hard study, on credit mainly for board and tuition, in the
course of which he made such advances in the languages
and mathematics as to have been prepared if he had pos-
sessed the means to pay the expense to enter an advanced
college class. He returned to Georgia, went to Canton,
the county seat of Cherokee County, and took charge of
the town academy as teacher in January, 1844, in debt for
two years preceding board and tuition, with six scholars
which soon increased to sixty ; while teaching this school
he read law of nights and Saturdays without an instructor ;
98 GOV. JOSEPH E. BROWN'S EARLY LIFE.
and at the end of the year he returned and paid off his
South Carolina debt.
In 1845 he pursued the study of law with a view to its
practice, and at the same time earned his board by teach-
ing the children of Dr. John W. Lewis. In August of
that year, after a critical public examination which he sus-
tained with unsurpassed promptness and correctness, he
was admitted to practise in the courts.
Dr. Lewis, who had observed the immense promise of
young Brown, and comprehended the extraordinary mind
with which nature had endowed him, and the sleepless
energy with which he was pressing it to development
and practical use, loaned him the money to pay the ex-
pense and attend the law school at Yale College, where
he entered in October, 1845. Having the advantage of
a previous course of thorough and severe study of law he
was enabled to keep up with his law classes, and also found
time to take a liberal literary course. Having graduated
in 1846 he returned to Canton and entered into practice
which soon became extensive and lucrative.
Eleven years later as the victorious leader of the great
Democratic party of Georgia he was installed into the
office of chief magistracy with the honors that crowned a
success brought about by native and cultivated ability
and reached without cause of reproach.
In 1847 he married Elizabeth, daughter of Rev. Joseph
-Grisham, a Baptist clergyman of South Carolina, who
has been among the most devoted of wives as she is one
of the noblest and best of women ; she has been constantly
by his side in all his arduous duties with aid in toil and
wise counsel in times of trial and embarrassment, constant
and devoted in affection and so just and generous, so
noble and self-sacrificing, as well as self-possessed and
w
GOV. JOSEPH E. BROWN'S EARLY LIFE. 99
prudent, even under strong provocation in ill-natured pub-
lic criticism, as to have held and maintained the universal
esteem and high respect of all parties, the foes as well as
the friends of her distinguished, often assailed and much
abused husband.
It is difficult for even a great man to continue to act
wisely without a true and devoted wife to aid him in coun-
sel and share his cares and toils. Such has been the good
fortune of Gov. Brown from early manhood to the present.
They have been blessed in their offspring as well as
domestic worldly success and prosperity. Julius L. Brown,
the elder son, a graduate of the State University of Geor-
gia and Cambridge Law school, has become prominent in
the legal profession ; Joseph M. Brown who inherited
much of the father's intellect, educated for the same pro-
fession, but on account of premonitions of physical weak-
ness has changed his purposes and become a railroad man;
Elijah A. and Charles M. Brown* are inclined to the noble
calling of agriculture ; George M. the youngest child is
yet a school boy ; Mary Y. is the wife of Dr. E. L. Con-
nally of Atlanta, and Sallie is not yet grown.
But all has not been continued bliss in this happy
household. There was an idol taken away, where mem-
ory still lingers, in all the freshness it had, when the
handmaid and the herald of parental and paternal grief —
grief that bowed low the strong head of the father, and
embalmed the true mother's heart Bright in childhood,
as the diamond, newly cut from the imbedded secrecy of
the untold past ages and centuries, were his mind and
soul, encased as they were, in a casket made frail by
early and incurable spinal disease ; and by the continued
ravages of which it was prevented from growth, develop-
* Since ttis was written Charles M. Brown has died, as hereafter stated.
100 GOV. JOSEPH E. BROWN'S EARLY LIFE.
ment, and vigor, endowed as he was with genius, whose
rajs sparkled, during his brief Hfe, through the sombre
clouds of pain and unrest, he passed like a meteor from
out of sight of men.
This was Franklin Pierce Brown, w^hose mortal remains
repose beneath a towering, beautifully surmounted, and
ornamented monument of Carrara marble, executed in
Italy, in the Oakland cemetery at Atlanta, where he was
laid in 1871, at the age of eighteen years. A child
almost in frame, he was a pre-conscious, self-educated
man in mind, in heart, and in all the attributes that
endeared him to his kindred, and to his own and his par-
ents' friends. His private library, as he read and mas-
tered the books, enlarged with the growth of his mind,
the expansion of his judgment, and cultivation of his
affections and taste, and at his early death, it embraced
one hundred volumes. The inscription on his monument
is from a voluntary tribute to his memory, from Alex-
ander H. Stephens : " Such a prodigy of intellect and
virtue, in a body so frail, I never met, in any other human
form, and never expect to if I live a thousand years."
There are, perhaps, but few, if any, of the wives of
public men of this age who can be compared with Mrs.
Brown as to the traits of mind, and heart, and the disposi-
tion and habits which render a wife, in truth and reality,
a helpmate to her husband, and which rendered her the
equal of her husband in many respects.
Instead of wasting his estate by extravagance and use-
less display, she has been a model of household and domes-
tic ecjnomy. Instead of leading an idle life, devoted to
pleasure and gayety, as most women do, whose husbands
have distinguished them, she has been devoted to toil and
industry, and has scarcely been the inferior of her hus-
GOV. JOSEPH E. BROWN'S EARLY LIFE. 101
band in the wonderful power he possesses of endurance
of protracted mental and physical labor and exertion.
It should be recorded to encourage the wives of all
public men, that Mrs. Brown, in addition to the care of
her children and household duties, with her own hand,
copied for the printer the original manuscripts, difficult
for most people to read, of all the messages and public
documents of the Governor while in office. And in like
manner all his discussions and opinions, as chief justice of
the supreme court of Georgia ; and in addition, with the
aid of the lamented and life-long afflicted son, Franklin
Pierce Brown, kept a complete file in scrap-books of the
public criticisms and comments and commendations on
the Governor, and most of the public documents from his
early life to the present ; which, since the destruction of
public records and files by the Federal cavalry at Milledge-
ville, have greatly facilitated the writer in this work.
The student of biography may be curious to know by
what kind of ladder he ascended from such lowly begin-
nings to so high a station and rank, and with such extraor-
dinary rapidity. The answer to the inquiry is, a ladder
he built as he ascended. It was based on the solid foun-
dation of brain, backbone, and heart ; mind, heroic endur-
ance and irrepressible perseverance and energy, and
honest purpose. The warmth of his patriotism, and
sympathy with the masses of the people of all classes, and
his fearless advocacy of the right, melted and moulded
the material of its rounds, in rapid succession, by which
Jie reached the height, and stood firmly planted on the
foundation of self-sustaining ability and wisdom.
He was accustomed to attend courts, give unremitted
attention to, and takes notes of all the proceedings
on, legal questions, If he was counsel, he went in pre-
102 GOV. JOSEPH E. BROWN'S EARLY LIFE.
pared on facts and law ; if he was not counsel, in the case
on trial, he was a laborious student of law in its applica-
tion to the affairs of men, and therefore deeply interested
in every cause that came to be tried by the courts He
had neither disposition nor time to loiter and dissipate, or
associate with the idle and vicious.
His first election to public office was in 1849, when
nominated by the Democrats of the forty-first senatorial
district, composed of Cobb and Cherokee counties ; when,
after encountering strong popular opposition on account
of his temperance opinions and practices, and his stubborn
and persistent refusal to carry his election by buying
whiskey and treating voters, he was elected by a large
majority, and entered the senate under the administra-
tion of George W. Towns, amid a splendid array of legis-
lative talent and worth. Towns had been re-elected over
Hon. E. Y. Hill by a doubtful struggle, and the parties
were closely matched^, and nearly equally divided in the
legislature. In the Senate, were Andrew J. Miller, Blount
C. Ferrell, Peter E. Love, Allen E Cochran, William W.
Clayton, Thomas Purse, Richard H. Clark, William B.
Wofford, John D. Stell, David J. Bailey, Charles Murphy,
Edward D. Chisolm, James M. Spurlock. In the House
were Linton Stephens, Lucius J. Gartrell, Edmund H.
Worrell, William T. Wofford, John A. Jones, A. T.
Mclntyre, Charles J. Jenkins, Alexander McDugald, Rob-
ert P. Trippe, Randolph Spaulding, James N. Ramsey,
Thomas C. Howard, John W. Anderson, George P. Harri-
son, A. D. Shackelford, A. H. Kenan, Winslow J. Lawton.
There were others of merit in both Houses.
The State being in the rapid stage of development,
her Legislature was a body of the first significance and
importance ; and summoned the best men of the respec-
GOV. JOSEPH E. BKOWN'S EARLY LIFE. 103
tive parties. The questions before this body were well
calculated to draw out and utilize the wisdom of the elder,
and develop the capacities of the younger members of
the Houses, the men of mark and merit. It is a truth,
however, that a large majority of this, as other preced-
ing Legislatures, was of men not constituted by natural
endowments or acquired abilities for the high and respon-
sible duties of legislators. Young Brown was placed on
three important standing committees of the Senate ;
among them the committee on the judiciary.
The questions of revenue, finance, and taxation, were
prominent, and summoned the highest talent of both par-
ties. There was a public debt of upwards of $1,800,000,
which had been created in great part by the losses and
the complications of the State through the State Central
Bank, and the construction of the Western & Atlantic
Railroad.
The theory of equalizing the burdens of government
that were increasing with its enterprises, and consequent
expenses, by the equitable system of ad valorem taxa-
tion, had been favored by Gov. Crawford. So far as relates
to real estate, it was more strongly and forcibly urged by
Gov Towns, on the general theory of placing all taxable
property on the basis of paying taxes to support govern-
ment according to value. The idea that the owner of a
slave-child, or invalid, or of small value, should pay as
much tax, on that slave, as the owner of a slave of large
value, and a like theory as to other property, and assets,
tended to bring the system of "specific taxes," into dis-
favor, and to inaugurate that of taxing v^alues instead of
specified property.
The Western & Atlantic railroad, the first enterprise
of the kind by any Southern State, was being completed.
104 GOV. JOSEPH E. BEOWN'S EARLY LIFE.
The subject of a suitable organization and system of laws
for its government and management, so as to make it
available as a great channel of inland transportation, and
the development of the country, as was originally in-
tended, and a source of revenue to the State after paying
the debts contracted for construction, and at the same
time guard against the corrupting influences of so large a
money collecting and disbursing institution, was one of
momentous importance.
The administration and government, and financial
affairs of the State penitentiary ; the asylums of the luna-
tics, and deaf and dumb ; the public land system ; the
disputed boundary with Florida ; the militia laws, and
means of the protection of the State ; the purity of elec-
tions; salaries of public officers ; the supreme court ; edu-
cation, and the threatening relations of the people of the
North toward the South on the slavery question, were
under severe and critical review in this Legislature, and
all afforded ample field for the intellectual powers of Mr.
Brown and his able contemporaries of the Senate and
House.
Gov. Towns, who was of the class called "hot spurs,"
and afterward "fire-eaters," brought the subject of fed-
eral relations before the Assembly, stating in strong
terms his views of the dangers to the South growing out
of anti-slavery aggressions by the Northern people. It
was in this Legislature that the measure was adopted
which divided the Democratic and Whig parties up to
1852. The call of a convention of the State to consider
her course on account of the alleged fraudulent organiza-
tion of the Territory of California into a State goveri>-
ment, with a constitution prohibiting slavery, and the
admission of the State into the Union by Congress : the
GOV. JOSEPH E. BROWN'S EARLY LIFE. 105
debates on this question and matters germane to it
had the effect to develop different and conflicting opin-
ions between Democrats and between Whigs in reference
to the preservation of the Federal Union ; and the integ-
rity of the States and the protection to the constitutional
rights of the South in the peculiar institution of slavery.
They differed as to the value and importance of the Union,
while all were Union men ; they differed also as to the
extent of the aggressive spirit against slavery and the
imminence of the danger, while they were all State Rights
and Southern Rights men. The result was an explosion
and disbanding of party organizations for the time being.
In these discussions, and those which followed before
the people, Mr. Brown, while not a Disunionist or Seces-
sionist, as many of the Southern Rights men were, was
firmly and decidedly in favor of such a course as might
tend to arrest aggression and preserve the Union and
Constitution by providing safeguards, or enforcing those
we had, for the rights of the States, and the honor and
interest of the slaveholding people of the South.
But, as we have seen, the wing of Democracy with
which he acted was largely in the minority when the
people came to elect delegates to the convention, and in
the subsequent election of Cobb over McDonald for gov-
ernor, with a strong Union legislature which elected Mr.
Toombs in the place of Mr. Berrien to the United States
Senate. But, as we have seen, upon the settlement of
the disputed issues the local and temporary parties
organized on them were disbanded, the old Whig and
Democratic parties re-organized, and the Southern Rights
Democrats passed out from under the cloud of defeat and
minority.
In the organization of the Democratic forces of the
106 GOV. JOSEPH E. BROWN'S EARLY LIFE.
State for the decisive canvass between the national Whigs
and Democrats in the Union, and to determine the mooted
and vexed question as to the ascendency and power of
the one or the other, under the lead of Winfield Scott
and of Franklin Pierce, the prominence, ability, and in-
fluence of Brown caused him to be placed upon the Demo-
cratic electoral ticket for the 5th congressional district of
the State, which after a successful canvass was carried for
himself and the Pierce electors by an overwhelming and
increased majority.
I have elsewhere alluded to his candidacy and election
over Hon. David Irwin, the incumbent judge of the Blue
Ridge circuit in 1855, and his brilliant and able admin-
istration for the two years ensuing, which position he held
at the time the State Democratic convention nominated
him for governor.
The w^isdom of the State has fluctuated much upon the
proper mode of appointing judges of the superior court.
From time out of mind they had been elected by the
General Assembly on joint ballot ; but by Act of 1852. re-
enacted in 1854, the State constitution was so changed as
to give their election to the people. This contest be-
tween Brown and Irwin was a trial in that, as there was
in other circuits of the new system, which in the course
of a few years proved to be unsatisfactory on account of
the repugnance of the people to bringing their candidate
to electioneer personally for votes, and the supposed de-
moralizing tendency upon the judges when after a suc-
cessful canvass they have to preside over friends and foes
and to pass judgment upon the legal rights of those who
supported, as well as those who voted against them. In
many parts of the State it had the appearance of tending
to evil.
GOV. JOSEPH E. BROWN'S EARLY LIFE. 107
The next change was to clothe the governor with the
power to nominate, and the senate to confirm or reject —
as in the case of appointing judges of the supreme court
— which system was in force until 1877, when the con-
stitutional convention of that year so altered the constitu-
tion as to return to the original system of electing by the
Legislature, except that instead of a vote by ballot as
formerly, the method is to vote viva voce.
The method last abandoned was intended to remove
the appointment from all the corrupting influences of
popular elections ; but it was found to be a source of dis-
satisfaction because of the vast power it placed in the
hands of the governor, and the impossibility of the ap-
pointment of any man, however well suited or however
much desired by the people, who could not in some way
procure a nomination by him.
CHAPTER III.
Government of Georgia under Joseph E. Brown.
This embraces the period from his inauguration in
November, 1857, up to the commencement of, and during
the whole of the late war, to the final collapse of the con-
federacy, and to the suspension of civil authority in the
State, and his arrest and confinement undej the military
authority of the United States in the year 1865, having
been four times elected by the people of the State, and
by large and increased popular majorities. In 1859 the
opposition nominated the Hon. Warren Akin of Bartow
county, who canvassed the State with great zeal and
ability. But it was in the face of increased and solidified
confidence of the people in and largely widened and in-
tensified popularity of the incumbent ; and Mr. Akin, as
would any other man of either party in the State, suffered
defeat.
In 1861, after the war was fully opened on a large
scale, they nominated the Hon. Eugenius A. Nesbit, a
man of great ability, and purity, and of large personal
popularity, who, like Brown, had thoroughly and heartily
joined in the movement, and cast his lot with the fortunes
of the new confederacy. But he, like Akin, suffered de-
feat by a very large majority.
In 1863, when the fatal crisis of the bloody struggle
was being passed, and when the murmurings of discon-
tent were beginning to be heard, and it was supposed
that the somewhat silent voice, and unorganized senti-
GEOEGIA UiNTDER JOSEPH E. BROWX. 109
ment of opposition to the war in its inception, and espe-
cially to its continuance, and the strong desire for an
adjustment, and peace, would find expression at the bal-
lot-box, the Hon. Joshua Hill was brought out as a
candidate. He was an acknowledged Union man. An
old Whig with strong party prejudices, and great personal
integrity, decision, moral courage and firmness, who at
the time of secession represented his district in Congress,
and refusing to acknowledge the validity of the ordinance
of secession, did not retire with the Georgia delegation from
Congress, but formally resigned his seat, thus acknowledg-
ing the authority of the Federal government over a repre-
sentative of Georgia in Congress. It being impracticable
to defeat Brown by the popular vote, and with a view to
securing the election to the General Assembly, a third can-
didate was brought out. There was a 'sentiment of oppo-
sition to Brown among men, as much opposed to Hill as
he was, growing out of his opposition to the policy of
Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy, which will
claim particular attention in another part of this volume.
This opposition put forward as a third candidate a man of
fair ability, and great excellence and purity of private
character, and a true patriot ; the Hon. T. M. Furlow of
Sumter county, a strong Secessionist. But both these able
and popular men, like Benjamin H. Hill, Warren Akin,
and Judge Nesbit, were doomed to overwhelming defeat,
by a majority required by the State constitution over
both competitors. It is a marked feature in this election,
that the Georgia troops in the army, by act of the
Legislature, held elections in their camps and voted, in the
face of, and defiance to, the complaints of the confederate
administration and authorities against the course Brown
had pursued, in maintaining, even in war, the constitu-
110 GOVERi^MEXT OF GEORGIA
tion of the Confederacy, and the rights of the soldiers, as
well as people. The soldiers of this State voted for Brown
hy large majorities.
The history of Georgia in this period is, to a large ex-
tent, a continuation of the history of her Governor, which
naturally divides itself into the civil and military admin-
istrations.
Civil Administration of Gov. Brown.
Entering upon the duties of his office when really a
young man for the position, and when he was regarded
and classed among the young men of the State, as the
successor of a line of able and distinguished men, such as
Lumpkin, Schley, Gilmer, McDonald, Crawford, Towns,
Cobb, and Herschel V. Johnson, the anxiety and solici-
tude with his own party and his special friends as to his ex-
perience and knowledge and ability to sustain the reputa-
tion of the State and administer the government were
only equalled by the expectation of short-comings and
failure on the part of his defeated political foes. It was
difficult for the intelligent public to conceive that a man
from the remote interior without the benefits of long
association with central political juntos and rings, and
without experience in civil administrations and a compara-
tive personal stranger to a large portion of the people,
could enter upon such an office without meeting many
difficulties to obstruct his success. It was not in their
process of reasoning upon the probabilities of his success
that a man in the interior, endowed as he was by the very
largest measure of brain power and unparalleled energy,
perseverance, and moral courage, could become learned
from the same authors studied in the central towns ; that he
had the same universe spread out before him in which to
UNDER JOSEPH E. BROWN. Ill
study nature, and people of the same race to live among
and study human passion and frailty ; and that there
was more leisure and fewer obstructions in the way of
just and correct conclusions, and more influences to fix
his principles and habits in accordance with the demands
of integrity and fidelity in private intercourse and in pub-
lic administration.
Hence the true character of Joseph E Brown was not
well understooxl, or the full measure of his administrative
capacity well comprehended by any considerable number
of even his own party in the State. Many good men
were inclined to think the party had succeeded with a
man who had to be aided and instructed in his duties,
and were not prepared for the conclusion that he was
himself bold, fearless, an irrepressible leader prepared
to follow the dictates of his own superior judgment, and
to lead not only the people, but his seniors in age, in the
matters of sound, practical, successful, honest government.
Able men of the State in the Legislature and out felt
they were his seniors in age, experience, and intellectual
rank, that when he differed from the General Assembly,
and sought to arrest hasty, inconsiderate, or unwise legis-
lation by the exercise of the constitutional prerogative and
duty of
The Veto Power,
he was dealing out his personal vanity, presumption, and
ambition to the obstruction and hinderance of the legis-
lative will emanating from the superior wisdom and pru-
dence of the leaders thereof; and that he failed to culti-
vate a proper consideration and deference for the opinions
of that body.
Against the criticisms of the opposition which had al-
ready added to his strength and popularity with the peo-
112 GOVERNMENT OF GEORGIA
pie in his second election, in the message of November,
1859, he thus vindicates his administration : —
" The numerous examples of hasty and inconsiderate legislation, which
•we so often witness, are becoming a source of great detriment to the
State and should be discouraged by all prudent legislators. One of the
great evils of the age is, that we legislate too much. As a general rule, the
failure of a bill that has merit in it is less to be regretted than the passage
of a bad law. Wholesome rules of law with which the people have become
familiar should not be changed, unless for good cause after very mature de-
liberation. A failure on the part of the Legislature to observe this rule has
involved our laws in much uncertainty, and has often kept the people in ig-
norance of their true meaning. Our legislators have frequently given too
little attention to their duties during the earlier part of the session, and have
left the greater part of the business of the session to be transacted within the
last few days before adjournment. Hence, their inability to give to each im-
portant measure, brought before them at the close of the session, the atten-
tion and deliberation necessary to its proper disposition. The consequence
has been, that we have had much inconsistent and unwise legislation. If we
would learn wisdom by experience, we might do much to correct this evil in
future. I feel it my duty to use all the influence and power of my position
to that end. I shall not, therefore, hesitate to lay aside and withhold my
sanction from all such bills passed in the hurry and confusion which usually
precede an adjournment as fail to command the approbation of my judg-
ment, together with all such as have not been plainly and correctly enrolled
and signed by the proper officers.
" I would further suggest the propriety of dispensing with a great deal of
the trivial, local, private, and class legislation which is introduced into almost
every General Assembly, much of which is useless because it benefits no one,
and much of it is unjust and mischievous, because it benefits a few individ-
uals at the expense of the many. Let it be remembered, that each useless
local Act introduced and passed cumbers the Journals and the pamphlet of
Acts, and that the State pays out of money raised from the people by taxa-
tion, for printing 4,000 copies of the Journals of each House and 5,000 copies
of the Act itself, and that one day spent by the General Assembly in the
passage of such Acts costs the State over $2,500, in pay of members, officers,
and other expenses. A proper and just regard for economy demands refor-
mation in this particular. The same objections that are applicable to trivial
and local legislation, apply to much of our private or individual and class
legislation, with many other objections on account of its injustice and in-
equality. It would, in my opinion, be much better for the Legislature, with
few exceptions, to lay down general rules of law, and let all alike regulate
their conduct by them.
"Entertaining these views, I have, during my term in office, frequently
UNDEE JOSEPH E. BEOWN. 113
withheld my sanction from bills of the character above described. In so
doing, I do not consider that I have been wanting in respect for the General
Assembly. The Constitution has assigned to the Governor, as well as to the
General Assembly, official powers and duties, and the people should hold him
responsible for the independent exercise of his official powers, as well as the
faithful discharge of his official duties. Neither House of the General As-
sembly feels that it is wanting in respect for the other when it refuses to
pass a Bill which it does not approve, though it may have been passed by the
other. The constitution declares that the governor 'shall have the revision
of all Bills passed by both Houses before the same shall become laws ;' and
it only gives to the General Assembly power to pass laws, ' notwithstanding
his dissent,' by two-thirds of both Houses.
"If the Governor, therefore, out of respect for the two Houses, signs a Bill
which his judgment does not approve, he denies to the people the exercise of
that executive revision, which, under the constitution they have a right to
demand as a protection against hasty or unwise legislation."
Crime and Pardoning Power.
At this period, the increase of crime had kept pace
with the multiphed chances for escape of punishment on
the part of those violating pubUc law. With the increase
of the class of men who disregard law, and pursue their
own inclination, in defiance to its penalties, there had
been a fearful relaxation on the part of judges, and an in-
crease of men who serve on juries whose own life and
conduct made them amenable to law, when rigidly admin-
istered, and who therefore had strong sympathy with per-
sons under indictment for the like offences they were in
the habit of committing. The laws against gambling en-
counter the opposition of all men fond of gambling, those
regulating liquor traffic have not much support from
men fond of tippling. Laws to protect virtue, and for the
promotion of purity, between sexes, have all the chances
of being evaded when libertines chance to be on the jury
to try those who violate them. Men who rely upon
deadly weapons, and cultivate the idea of punishing per-
sonal insults and offences by violence, are slow to punish
8
Kr
114 GOVERNMENT OF GEORGIA
men whose conduct results from similar ideas and prac-
tices.
The increase of legal skill and tact in the defence of
criminals; the disposition to use the pardoning power by
the Governor, and the General Assembly, tended to give
assurance to lawless men against the ultimate penalties
of criminal law, where there were social, pecuniary, or
political advantages to be used in their behalf. As judge
of the superior court for the two preceding years, he
had seen the evil tendency of relaxation, and the want
of firmness and nerve in the courts and juries. He had
set his face as a judge against it, and while he incurred
the hatred of criminals, and men committing misdemean-
ors, by preventing their escape from conviction, and im-
posing and executing the laws' penalties, he drew to
him the confidence, esteem, and ardent support of the
law and order loving people of all parties. And now
that the executive office of the State was placed in his
hands he had to confront the same spirit and fearful ten-
dency, in a higher sense of responsibility, and in the face
of far more formidable opposition. It was the influence
of wealth and social power of political leaders whose op-
position was to be dreaded in all future contests, and the
attempt to make him odious before the people for the al-
leged want of proper feelings of humanity, clemency
and mercy. It involved on him the decision between the
policy of giving encouragement to criminals, and immu-
nity to crime, through the tender emotions of forgiveness
and mercy, as to temporal penalties on the one hand, and
the protection of life, liberty, and property of the whole
people by making punishment certain, according to the
rules of law. It involved him in the refusal to turn con-
victed offenders loose by the indiscriminate or liberal use
UNDER JOSEPH E. BROWK 115
of the pardoning power, and to sanction bills of the Gen-
eral Assembly, even when backed by powerful influences,
whose object was to relieve properly and legally con-
victed criminals from the penalties of their crimes.
The first important bill of this kind passed in the
first session of the Legislature was to commute the pun-
ishment of John Black under sentence of death for mur-
der in Habersham county. In his veto message to this
bill the Governor, after ably reviewing the case, and the
law as to the constitutional power to commute by the
Legislature after correction and sentence by the Court,
foreshadowed his views and policy as follows : —
"While I am controlled in my action in this case by the Constitutional
question, it may not be amiss to notice the question as one of public policy in
connection with the question of Constitutional obligation. Should tlie right
to commute the punishment be recognized and exercised in this case, it is
not probable that there would ever be another case of capital punishment in
Georgia; the most aggravated case of murder would probably be brought be-
fore the General Assembly. Eloquent and sympathetic appeals would be
made to the passions and feelings of the Legislature. The result would
probably be in every case a commutation of the punishment; and when the
convict went to the Penitentiary, in a few years he might be pardoned out
and let loose upon the community to shed more innocent blood. The clamor
which is beginning to be raised for the pardon of every felon I can but re-
gard as a false sympathy, tending to encourage the commission of crime by
destroying in the minds of bad men the fear of certain punishment. In a
deliberate case of wilful murder the best interest of the community requires
that the culprit should suffer death. This is the revealed law of our Creator;
He has said, ' the murderer shall surely be put to death.' Again, He has
said, ' moreover ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer,
which is guilty of death, but he shall be surely put to death.' ' So ye shall
not pollute the land wherein ye are; for blood it defileth the land; and the
land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of
him that shed it.' That State or Nation, which is most faithful in its ob-
servance of God's moral law, is always the most prosperous and happy. If
we would save our land from the stain of innocent blood, we must execute
the law and punish the guilty. While the pardoning power is a necessary
one in every well regulated government, and while there are cases when it
should be exercised, its indiscriminate exercise cannot fail to be attended
116 GOVERNMENT OF GEORGIA
•with tlie most ruinous consequences ; when the murderer is turned loose upon
the community, let it be remembered that the blood of the innocent, slain
like the blood of Abel of old, cries to us from the ground."
The firm adherence to the settled opinion and policy of
this message, in their application to the multitude of
cases for pardon, drew down upon him the odium and the
curses of criminals, their relatives and advocates, and
strengthened the confidence of the law abiding people in
their Governor, and tended to protect them against the
crimes of lawless men by removing the hope of immunity
from punishment when legally convicted.
The rule laid down in the case of Black was a hard one
to adhere to, and subjected the Governor, in the course
of his administration, to many severe tests of his firmness.
Many are able to brave danger in the most terrific form,
or to resist the influence of rewards when offered. But
few men who are charged with individual responsibility
in matters involving life or liberty have the stability to
withstand the influence of sympathy aroused by the claims
of early friendship, and the sacred and heart-subduing
pleadings and appeals of a true and noble mother for her
son under sentence of death. The case of William A.
Choice, of Rome, put him to the test in both.
His mother, a women of great worth and propriety,
and of superior intelligence, had been proprietor of a
hotel at Dahlonega, where Brown in his boyhood carried
country produce to sell. Her great kindness to the poor
country boy was fresh in his manhood memory. At this
period she was the mother of elegant daughters, inter-
married with prominent and influential men. The son
himself, under sentence, was a man of brilliant mind,
and of large personal popularity in his youth. The
mother, as all true mothers would, visited the Governor
i
UNDER JOSEPH E. BEOWK HJ
in person, in behalf of her only son. But he was firm,
treating her with great tenderness and kindness ; he com-
municated to her his determination to consider the case
in the light of official duty under oath, and to follow his
convictions of right in the case. The case attracted the
attention of the people at large, was much discussed in
newspapers, and social circles. Hon. Benj. H. Hill, the
great criminal lawyer and advocate, who had defended
him in vain in the court, and Hon. Daniel Printup, his
brother-in-law and an able lawyer, sought and obtained
seats in the State Senate, where, on the discussion' of the
bill for pardon, the former exerted his wonderful power
of logic, eloquence, and pathos.
The bill passed both Houses and went to the Governor.
After an able review of the case, in which his judgment
concurred with the court and jury, reviewing the plea
of insanity, as the result of intoxication, the Governor
concludes his veto message in the following language,
which well illustrates the times, the case, and the man of
iron will in the discharge of official duty : —
" In determining a question of the character of the one now under con-
sideration, I should be unfaithful to the high trust reposed in me, if I
should permit my reason to be overcome by my sympathy.
" No act of my life has been more unpleasant than the one I now perform.
No one has a higher appreciation of the character of the relatives of the
defendant, and no one would more sincerely rejoice to be able to soothe the
feelings of a mother whose heart, pierced with anguish, now languishes
with untold grief. But, if it were proper for me on this occasion to be
influenced by considerations of this nature, I should do wrong, were I to
contemplate the sufferings on one side, and refuse to look upon the picture
of misery on the other.
"A few months since the family of Webb, the deceased, was comfortable
and happy. His wife and little children had the care and protection of a
fond husband and a kind father; but in a moment of time, by the cruel act
of the defendant, the wife a widow, and the children orphans, were left to
mourn their irreparable loss, and were thrown upon the cold charities of
the world almost friendless and penniless, to make their way through life as
118 GOVERNMENT OF GEORGIA
best they could, poor and neglected. But duty forbids that I should be influ-
enced by the contemplation of this scene of misery on either side. The laws
must be vindicated, and crime must be punished, or society cannot be pro-
tected, and Courts and Juries must be sustained in the administration and
execution of the criminal laws of the land, or violence and bloodshed will
prevail to an extent that will excite and prompt our people to take the
law into their own hands, in the belief that it is the only protection
left them.
"I am not unmindful, while making this decision, that the pardoning
power is a necessary one in every well regulated government, and that there
are some cases in which it ought to be exercised, as in ,cases of partiality,
prejudice, or highly excited feelings on the part of the Court or Jury by
•whom the case was tried, rendering it highly probable that injustice was
done the defendant, or on account of perjury or mistake on the part of the
witnesses for the State, which is afterwards discovered, and which may have
materially influenced the verdict against tlie defendant, or in cases of con-
viction upon such slight evidence that the mind is left in great doubt about
tlie guilt of the defendant, or in cases of extreme youth, — in these and pos-
sibly a few other instances when injustice is likely to be done, and when
the remedy is no longer within the reach of the Courts, the humanity of our
Constitution has wisely vested in another department of the government
ample power to prevent the injustice, by extending a pardon, and thus
arresting the judgment of the Court. But it should not be forgotten that
this power is subject to be greatly abused, and that it was not the intention
of those who formed our Constitution, that the verdicts of Juries and the
judgments of Courts should be indiscriminately annulled by its exercise, and
felons convicted of atrocious crimes thereby turned loose again upon the
community ; the extension of mercy to such offenders is the infliction of
cruelty and injustice upon society. I am also aware that it is argued that
the pardoning power is a Godlike power, and that it is noble to exercise it.
But it should not be forgotten when this argument is used, that God himself
required no less than the blood of his own Son as an atonement for sin
before he exercised the pardoning power, and ' without the shedding of
blood is no remission,' is the language of his eternal truth. God has said
in his revealed law, that ' the murderer shall surely be put to death,' ' more-
over ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer which is guilty
of death : but he shall be surely put to death. So ye shall not pollute the
land whereon ye are, for blood it defileth the land, and the laud cannot be
cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed
it.' If then we would respect the revelation of God, and save our land from
the stain of innocent blood, we must execute the law and punish the guilty.
Some may say that the stern truths of the Bible are not suited to the
humanity and sympathy of the present age ; they are none the less truths,
however, on that account, and it is none the less certain that the curse of
UNDER JOSEPH E. BROWN. 119
God will rest upon that State or nation which disregards them, and that
his blessings will attend those who obey them."
The pardon failing, for the want of a two-third vote
over the veto, the pending writ of error was prosecuted
in the supreme court, and the conviction was affirmed.
In the Legislature, a year later, a bill was passed to pardon
him, and place him in the lunatic asylum. This bill was
also vetoed by the Governor, on the grounds that the
supreme court had reviewed and pronounced upon the
whole case, and thoroughly considered the law of insanity
in its application to this case. And upon the further
ground that there was no power in the Legislature to
adjudge him a lunatic, and commit him to the asylum,
which could only be legally done by the court having
jurisdiction of the case. This bill was passed over the
veto, and Choice sent for a short time to the asylum,
and died there.
Banks and Banking.
Novembers, 1857, the retiring Governor Johnson com-
municated to the Legislature in his general message : —
" In the midst of prosperity and remunerating prices for the products of
agriculture, our banks have generally suspended specie payments, resulting
in panic, broken confidence, and general stagnation in commerce. As the
session of the General Assembly was so near at hand, and the suspension
seemed to be necessary, as a measure of self-defence against the heavy drafts
upon their coin, to supply the demand for specie at the North, T thought it
prudent to withhold any action against them, as required by law, until the
Legislature, in its wisdom, should have an opportunity of deliberating upon
the matter, and directing what course ought to be pursued towards them. I
therefore submit this whole subject to your consideration ; and to enable you
to act advisedly, I herewith transmit to you copies of the late returns of the
various banks of Georgia, exhibiting their condition, made in. pursuance of
executive proclamation. It is gratifying that these statements afford evi-
dence of their solvency. Will you legalize their suspension and fix a day in
the future when they shall resume specie payments? As a general rule, it
is safest to meddle as little as possible with the currency of the country.
The laws of trade regulate it best. Hence, in view of the crisis that is upon
120 GOVERNMENT OF GEORGIA
us, complicated, as it is, with the interests of agriculture, and the price of its
productions, it would seem to be wise to tolerate the suspension, in reference
to all those institutions, which, upon examination, shall prove to be sound
and solvent. It is not only legitimate, but the duty of the Legislature to in-
vestigate thoroughly the condition of the banks ; to institute a diligent
enquiry into their mode of transacting business, and, by the use of all the
powers — even to sending for persons and papers — which may be necessary to
ascertain whether they have confined their operations strictly within their
appropriate spheres, or whether they have embarked in speculations, by plac-
ing their funds in New York, to shave southern paper at a heavy discount,
or in any other manner departed from the objects contemplated by their
charters. It is due to the country that a full exposition be made; it is the
only manner in which the public can be protected. If such abuses shall be de-
tected, let the Legislature, in granting them tolerance in their present predica-
ment, put them upon terms which will prevent their recurrence for the future."
This message came from one of the most able and pop-
ular governors the State has had, and it was natural for
the General Assembly to follow its suggestions, by the
passage of an act to legalize the bank suspensions, and
relieve them from the forfeiture of their charters, to which
by suspension, they became liable. And the passage of
the legalizing act recommended, developed in the young
Governor a trait of character and a firmness in the face
of the moneyed corporations of the State that drew to
him the admiration of the people. His attempt to throt-
tle the banks, and to force them like individuals to obey
the laws of the State, was a sublime exhibition of moral
courage, and imbedded him securely in their confidence,
while it arrayed against him a monetary power and politi-
cal influence that were well calculated to deter weak and
timid men. His terrible review of banks and banking in
this State, in reply to their pleas for suspending specie
payments, in the veto message, to which no successful
reply could be made, is one of the State papers that will
do to be read in any country, or stage of civilized gov-
ernment, by people seeking the height of truth and jus- .
UNDER JOSEPH E. BROWN. 121
tice. The document is elaborate and exhaustive. The
foundation, premises, and conclusions are in the following
extracts : —
" Our banking institutions have exclusive privileges conferred upon them
by law which are very valuable, and which the laboring masses are pro-
hibited under a heavy penalty from exercising upon the same terms upon
which the banks exercise them. The banks are permitted by law, without
bond or security, to loan their credit, or, in other words, their own notes as
money, and to charge interest upon them. The laboring man, whatever may
be his occupation, is denied this privilege, and is subject to indictment and
punishment as a criminal if he attempts to exercise it. lie can receive in-
terest only upon the capital which is the income of his labor ; and upon this
he is permitted to charge only legal interest, or seven per cent, per annum.
The laboring masses produce the capital. Indeed, all capital is the result
of labor ; and that system of legislation which establishes a favored class, and
confers upon them privileges denied to others, by which they are enabled to
enrich themselves by taking from the laboring masses the income of their
labor, is not only unjust, but contrary to the genius and spirit of our gov-
ernment.
" I affirm that our banks, which have suspended and so continue, are guilty
of a high commercial, moral, and legal crime. Of a commercial crime, be-
cause they have brought the present crisis upon the people for selfish pur-
poses, when there was no great necessity, and when by spending a few thou-
sand dollars of tl)eir immense profits in the purchase of specie the suspension
could easily have been avoided. By refusing to do this they have destroyed
public confidence, deranged commerce, caused our great staple to fall several
cents on the pound, by which our planters have sustained a loss of several
millions of dollars, and the value of property throughout the State has greatly
depreciated. The credit of the State abroad has been injured, while general
distrust and depression have been the result. They have been guilty of a
moral crime by violating their contract with the people, in refusing to meet
their solemn promises when they acknowledge, nay, even boast of their ability
to do so, thereby doing the grossest injustice to the laboring masses who have
confided in them and been deceived by them. They have been guilty of a
legal crime by wilfully and knowingly violating and setting at open defiance
a positive statute of the State, making the price of our property, the price of
labor, the happiness and welfare of the people, and the law of the State all
bend to their interest. They are governed solely by their interest, and it is
their interest in times of prosperity to expand and extend their circulation,
raise the price of property, stimulate a spirit of speculation and involve the
country in their debt as much as possible.
* * * *
" In 1840, while the people were passing through one of those periods of
122 GOA'ERNMENT OF GEOEGIA
distress above alluded to, they determined to protect themselves, if possible,
against such a state of things in future; and, through their representatives,
they passed a law requiring the banks which had suspended to resume spe-
cie payment within less than two months after the passage of the Act and
requiring all the banks of this State in future to redeem all their liabilities
in specie, on demand or presentation — while forfeiture of the charter was pro-
vided as the penalty for a violation of the law. The people relying upon this
plain statute, as well as the common law which takes away the charter of a
corporation which abuses the trust and palpably violates the contract upon
which the charter was obtained, supposed they were secure against further
bank suspensions. On account of the value of their corporate privileges it
was believed that motives of interest would prompt the banks to make, out
of their large gains, a sacrifice, if need be, sufficient to enable them to pro-
cure the specie and redeem their bills to save their charters. Tt was not then
believed that the banks would have the power to violate the law with im-
punity, and to dictate the terms of their own pardon. Since the passage of
the Act of 1840, the number of banks and the amount of banking capital in
the State have greatly increased. As their number and capital have increased,
their power in the State and their influence over the legislation of the country
have increased. Who has not observed within the last few years the increas-
ing influence of our wealthy corporations over our Legislature ? When their
interest is at stake, outside pressure becomes very strong upon the law-mak-
ing power and is too sensibly felt.
" If the suspension is legalized it cannot be denied that the banks have
triumphed over the people and set the law at defiance. They have made at
once the interest upon the whole amount of their circulation for the entire
period of the suspension. They receive interest upon all their bills; they
pay no interest and cannot be compelled to redeem the bills. It is no reply
to say that they may be sued and compelled to pay interest after protest, and
ten per cent, damages. The bills are scattered all over the State in the
hands of the people, in small sums, and not one in fifty has an amount of the
bills of any one bank large enough to justify him in employing a lawyer in
Augusta or Savannah, and standing a suit with the bank. Better give up
the debt in many cases than incur the expense, trouble, and delay. Legalize
the suspension and the bills still further depreciate, property falls lower, and
exchange rises higher. The country has no currency but depreciated bills»
(for the banks will lock up all the gold and silver in their vaults) and we
have no means of determining which banks are solvent, and which are in-
solvent. At the time set for them to resume the insolvent banks would be
unable to do so. During the suspension they would have flooded the country
with their bills and the failure would then fall much more heavily upon the
people than it would if they were wound up now before they have time to in-
crease the circulation of their worthless bills. If they are not good the sooner
the test is made, and the fact known, the better for us all. If they are good.
UNDER JOSEPH E. BROWK 123
they can buy gold and resume specie payment. If they do not, let their
charters be forfeited."
The General Assembly, although Democratic, was not
apace with the pioneer Governor in his attempt to execute
the law upon banks, and to protect the people. He
was in this, as in many other respects, living in advance
of even the higher classes of intelligent leaders, who re-
garded the summary course he recommended harsh and
hurtful in its certain effects on commerce, credit, and the
general business of the country. They overruled his
veto and passed the suspension Act ; but behind the legis-
lators stood the people in almost solid phalanx with their
heroic Governor. The banks felt that the Executive was,
when true to the trusts of his high office, a power in the
State not to be scoffed or derided, but to be obeyed and
respected when charged with the duty of protection to
the people.
The Act granted them until the 15th of November, 1858,
to resume ; but the voice of the people and the odium of
suspension in the face of the statute of the State caused
the resumption by the first of May preceding.
In the general message of November, 1858, after stat-
ing the history and effect of this bank controversy the
Governor says : —
" For the purpose of compelling these corporations to yield obedience to
the law in future, I respectfully recommend the penalty for disobedience be
increased, and in addition to the penalty already prescribed, that a tax of two
per cent, a mouth upon the whole amount of the capital stock mentioned in
the charter of each delinquent bank be levied and collected in gold and sil-
ver for the entire time during which any such bank may in future remain
in a state of disobedience, and fail to make its returns as directed by the
statutes. There can be no just reasons why wealthy corporations should be
permitted at their pleasure to set the law at defiance, while individuals are
compelled to suffer rigorous penalties for its violation. The mandates of the
law should be obeyed as promptly and implicitly by the most influential and
124 GOVERNMENT OF GEORGIA
wealthy as by the poorest and most needy. This is republican equality, and
our people should be content with nothing else.
I presume it will not be denied by any one that we have erred by a too
liberal and unguarded grant of corporate powers and privileges to moneyed
monopolies. . And it is believed that a future extension of this policy would
soon enable these monopolies to control the government of Georgia and make
the people the subjects of their power. It is already claimed by some that
they now have the power, by combinations and free use of large sums of
money, to control the political conventions and elections of our State, and in
this way to crush those who may have the independence to stand by the
rights of the people in opposition to their aggressive power. I trust that
the bold, independent and patriotic people of Georgia may never be compelled
to bow the neck in subjection to the yoke thus intended to be imposed by
the corporate powers of the State. Let it not be forgotten, however, by
those who have watched with anxiety the growing power of corporate influ-
ence, that the price of republican liberty is perpetual vigilance.
" The monetary and commercial affairs of the country must necessarily re-
main subject to panics, under heavy pressures, at certain, if not frequent
intervals, as long as our present banking system is continued with its enor-
mous powers and privileges, which have been enlarged and extended by
legislative enactment, chartering new banks from year to year. The people
should take this subject into serious consideration, and pronounce upon it a
calm and deliberate judgment. Every intelligent person must admit that
it is impossible for a bank having a paper circulation three times as large as
the amount of its specie to redeem all its bills in specie on demand. Should
all its bills be presented for payment at any one time, and the specie be de-
manded, it can then redeem but one-third of them. In that case, if the bank
has sufficient assets, or property, the other two-thirds may possibly not be an
ultimate loss, but payment must be delayed till the money can be realized by
a disposition of those assets and property, which may not be till the end of a
lengthy and uncertain litigation. It is clear, therefore, that our present pa-
per currency is not a currency convertible, at all times, into gold and silver
upon presentation ; and that only one-third of it, should payment be demanded
on all at one time, can, in the nature of things, be so convertible, so long as
the banks issue three dollars in paper for one in coin.
"In my judgment, no paper currency is safe which is not so regulated as
to be at all times readily convertible into gold and silver. It is true, our people,
by a sort of common consent, receive the bills of the banks and use them as
money, though in reality they rest on no solid specie basis. But sad experi-
ence has taught us that such a circulating medium subjects the country to
panic at the first breath of distrust or suspicion, which may be produced by
the failure of a single bank having a large circulation and extensive connec-
tions with other banks, and may widen and extend to the prostration of the
credit of the whole country. Such a currency, having no solid specie basis,
UNDER JOSEPH E. BROWN. 125
can be available only so long as the community will consent to receive promi-
ses to ]>ay money in (he place of money itself.
" The people take from the banks their bills as money. The banks re-
ceive interest, and often exchange, upon them. When required to redeem
their bills in specie, they suspend, if they choose to do so; and then, if an at-
tempt is made to coerce payment in specie, they resist it, holding a rod over the
people by threatening to make them pay upon a specie basis debts contracted
by them for the bills of the bank; notwithstanding those bills, when they
received them, rested on a basis of one-third specie. The high prerogative
of exercising banking privileges, and of issuing their own notes or bills to be
circulated as money, not resting upon any solid specie basis, is secured to the
banks under our present system of legislation as an exclusive right, while the
exercise of similar privileges upon like terms is denied to all individual citi-
zens of the State by stringent penal enactments.
" The privilege of using their own notes as money gives, to the favored few
who enjoy it, immense advantages over their fellow-citizens, and may often
enable the managers of these corporations to amass great wealth by their
high salaries and large profits. * It may however be said that many of the
stockholders are widows and orphans ; that the stock is in the market for
all ; and that the dividends are not greater than the profits realized from
other investments. This may be admitted. Indeed, it seems in practice to
be generally true, that corporate privileges do not result so much to the bene-
fit of the mass of stockholders as to the benefit of the few who manage the
corporation. To estimate correctly the profits made out of the people by
those engaged in banking, we must not only count the dividends of seven,
eight or ten per cent, distributed among the stockholders, but we must also
take into the account the banking houses, real estate and other property
purchased out of the profits of the bank and held by the corporation.
Besides, we should consider a reserved fund of two, three, or four hundred
thousand dollars, made up of accumulated profits, and often kept back by
our larger banks and not distributed among the stockholders, together with
tiie high salaries of all the officers of the bank, which must be paid before
any dividends are distributed. These sums, though made out of the people
by the banks, are not semi-annually divided among the stockholders. To
these add all sums paid to attorneys, agents, etc., and all amounts lost by
defaulting agents, which, while they cannot be set down as profits of the
corporation, since neither its officers proper nor its stockholders are bene-
fited thereby, are still sums of money which, under the workings of the sys-
tem, are drawn by the corporation from the pockets of the people.
" To all this add the large sums lost almost every year on account of
broken banks, whose bills are left worthless in the hands of the people, who
have paid full price for them as money. And take into the account the
further fact that the State, in 1848 and 1849, issued $515,000 of her bonds,
to meet her liabilities on account of the Central bank, $240,000 of which
126 GOVERNMENT OF GEORGIA
are still outstanding. And that in 1855, she issued $48,500 of bonds to pay
her indebtedness on account of the Darien bank, which are still unpaid,
making $288,500 of bonds on account of these two banks which still remain
a portion of the public debt, the interest upon which is paid annually out of
the taxes of the people — and we may form some estimate of the amounts
which the people of Georgia have paid and continue to pay in taxes, and
suffer in losses, to sustain the banking system.
♦* Again, in many instances, those who control the corporation may have
great advantages in being able, if they choose, to obtain such accommoda-
tions as they may desire, by the use of its funds, when a favorable oppor-
tunity for speculation occurs. The dividends paid to stockholders are
therefore no proper criterion by which to judge of the advantages of the
corporation to those who hold its offices, and control and manage its capital
and its operations ; or of the sums lost by the people on account of the work-
ings of the system.
" Thus far I have discussed this question upon the supposition that the
liabilities do not exceed three dollars for every one of specie actually on
hand in the banks to meet and satisfy them. This supposition is more
favorable to many of the banks than facts will justify. The law of their
charters only requires that their liabilities shall not exceed three dollars for
every one of capital stock actually pa^rf in and not three dollars for every one
of specie on hand to meet those liabilities. As an illustration of the error
of our present legislation in incorporating banks, suppose the amount of the
capital stock of the bank be limited by the charter to $500,000 which is to be
paid in, in gold and silver, by the stockholders. The charter then provides
tiiat the liabilities of the bank shall at no time exceed three times the
amount of the capital stock actually paid in. The stockholders paid in the
$500,000 in gold and silver. The directors of the bank may then, without
any violation of the letter of the charter, incur liabilities against the bank to
any amount that does not exceed $1.500,000 ; and that too, without any
obligation on their part to keep in their vaults the $500,000 actually paid in,
or a like sum. If they should take out $400,000 of their specie aud invest
it in real estate or other property, leaving but $100,000 of specie in the
vaults, they may still contract debts to the amount of a million and a half,
and may point in triumph to the language of their charter, and to the fact
that the $500,000 of capital stock was once actually paid in, as their author-
ity for so doing.
" This bank legislation of our State does not seem to have been well under-
stood by our people. They have generally believed that banks, by the let-
ter of their charters, were required to have on hand at all times an amount
of specie one-third as large as the entire amount of their liabilities. The
banks have understood the matter very differently, and have not only
claimed, but exercised the right when they regarded it their interest, to e.x-
tend their li;ibiliues far beyond three dollars for every one of specie actually
UNDER JOSEPH E. BROWN. 127
on hand to meet those liabilities. By examination of their returns made to
this department in October, 1857, it will be seen that at the time of the late
suspension of our banks in Augusta and Savannah, the liabilities of one of
them for bills in circulation and individual deposits, exceeded thirteen dollars
for every one dollar of both specie and bills of other banks which it then
had on hand. Another had only one dollar in specie in its vaults for every
fifteen dollars of its liabilities for bills in circulation and deposits. Another
had not one dollar in specie for every seven of liability for bills in circulation
and deposits ; and another had only one dollar in specie for every eleven dol-
lars of its liabilities of the character mentioned above. It is true these
banks had other assets, but those assets were not money. The question
naturally suggests itself, how can such a currency be convertible into gold and
silver — the money of the constitution — on demand or presentation? How can
a bank y/ith fifteen dollars of cash liabilities for every one dollar in specie, or
even of five dollars for one, pay its liabilities promptly on demand ? It is
impossible. And how can its bills be justly considered safe as a circulating
medium, or as money, if it cannot redeem them promptly on demand ?
" In consideration of all the imperfections and abuses of our present bank-
ing system, I am of opinion that we should do all in our power to bring about
its complete reformation, and if this be not possible, we should abandon it
entirely, I am the advocate of no harsh measure that would either violate
the legal rights of the present corporations (however unwisely they were
granted), or that would bring distress upon the people by a sudden return
from a paper to a specie currency. A reformation so radical, if attempted,
must be the work of years. If the Legislature would continually refuse to
charter any new bank, or to enlarge the capital stock of, or re-charter any
bank now in existence, the system would gradually work itself out by efflux
of time ; and we might, without any sudden shock, return safely to the Cur-
rency of the constitution, plant ourselves upon a firm specie basis, and rid
ourselves of a system against which the great and good men who conducted
the revolution and formed our constitution intended to guard their posterity,
when they declared in the constitution that nothing but gold and silver coin
should be made a legal tender.
" In two of the States of this Union banks are prohibited by constitutional
provision ; two others have no banks, and another had but two small banks,
whose charters, it is said, have been forfeited by the late suspension. And I
am informed upon what I consider reliable authority, that the late com-
mercial pressure was comparatively but little felt within the limits of those
States.
" Should our people determine, however, to continue the present banking
system, and to charter new banks, increasing their number and thereby in-
creasing their power in the State, I would respectfully urge the importance
of guarding all charters with much greater stringency in the future. Let
the charter of each provide that the entire liabilities of the bank shall at no
128 GOVEENMENT OF GEORGIA.
time exceed three dollars for every one of specie actually in its vaults and
bona fide the property of the bank, on pain of immediate forfeiture. Let
the simple fact of suspension of specie payment render the charter absolutely
null and void. This would deter them from engaging in such wild specula-
tions and over-issues as compel them to suspend in case of pressure. Let
provision also be made that all executions issued against the corporation may
be levied upon the property of any stockholder until the creditor be satisfied,
leaving the stockholder to his legal remedies against the rest of the stock-
holders to enforce contribution among themselves. Let the bills of the bank
in the hands of the people at the time of suspension bear interest from that
time till paid. And let the Legislature retain the right, by express reserva-
tion in the charter, to alter, modify, or repeal it at pleasure. In my opinion
it would be best for the Legislature to refuse to grant a charter to any cor-
poration for any purpose whatever without retaining a similar power, should
its exercise be required by the interests of the State or the public good. If
the corporation is unwilling to trust the people with this repealing power,
how much more should the people be unwilling to trust the corporation
without it."
Two years later, when the then recent election of Mr.
Lincoln, the abolition candidate, as president, rendered
secession and revolution probable, and when the State
was preparing for a convention to determine her course,
the banks again sought relief by an Act to legalize their
suspension.
On the 30th of November, 1860 : " For the general rea-
sons against bank suspensions contained in the message of
December, 1857," he returned the Bill without approval
in an elaborate message setting forth the history of the
question and the results.
The following extracts show the firmness and nerve of
the Governor in the maintenance of his opinion of right : —
" The suspension of specie payment by the banks is not for the benefit of
the banks but for the benefit of the people ! The constant efforts made by
bank men to practise upon popular credulity, by the declaration of this
strange absurdity, are not a little remarkable. If this be true why is it, when
such a measure is to be carried, that our lobbies are crowded with bank presi-
dents, bank directors and bank stockholders who are constantly besieging
the members of the General Assembly with clamorous appeals for the passage
UXDEE JOSEPH E. BROWX. 129
of the bill, while the banks with which they are connected co-operate with
them for the purpose of keeping up the excitement by refusing to extend the
smallest accommodation to the people till the bill is passed? Why is it that
these gentlemen never take upon tliemselves to guard the people's interest
and spend money to secure the passage of bills through the Legislature, ex-
cept when it is desirable to pass a bank suspension bill? This is not the first
time I have seen all their influences brought to bear upon the Legislature
for the purpose of accomplishing an object in the midst of wild excitement
and great alarm. The small number of members of the present General
Assembly who were here in 1857, and voted for the bank bill of that year,
will, I think, concur with me iu the statement, that the excitement at the
capitol in 1857 was much greater than the advocates of the present bill have
been able to create on this occasion. The people then did not appreciate
the favor conferred on them by the passage of the law.
V * ^ ^
"It may be claimed that the present political aspect of affairs requires the
legislation proposed by this" bill. In case the convention of the people of this
State, when it meets in January next, shall pass an ordinance declaring the
State out of the Union, on account of the refusal of the Northern States to
abide by the Constitution, it may become proper to make an exception to a
general rule, and permit a suspension for a short time : as a change in the
relations of Georgia to the United States' Government might, for a time,
produce some derangement in the currency which could not be anticipated
by the banks; and they might, in such case, be entitled to a lenity to which
they would not be entitled under ordinary circumstances. I do not admit,
however, that it is either wise or just to pass an Act in advance which au-
thorizes the suspension till 1861, without regard to what may be the action
of the convention. If the State secedes from the Union, the Legislature will
probably have to be again convened to provide for our future safety and wel-
fare ; and it might then be time enough to determine this question."
The General Assembly, yielding to the clamor for rehef
and fearing the injurious effects threatened, passed the act
over the veto.
This bank controversy, and the unyielding opposition
of the executive to everything that tended to result in
wrong and damage to the people, through the defalcation
of any banking companies, is one important part of
her history, which in connection with the sleepless vigi-
lance over the treasury, the sagacious management of the
public property and judicious course in providing for and
9
130 GOVERNMENT OF GEOEGIA
meeting promptly the State's debts, gave to her Gov-
ernor a measure of popular confidence and ardor of pop-
ular support that grew and strengthened with the
severity of criticism, and the vindictiveness of opposition
from his enemies. And it goes far to explain the true
causes for the advanced position Georgia held among her
sister Southern States in credit, the value of her bonds,
and the confidence of financial men and institutions
abroad.
Administration of Western & Atlantic Railroad.
This great public work, as a State enterprise, met with
strong popular opposition from its inception based on the
Democratic theory of opposition to internal improvements
by the general government, and the political doctrine
that it is inequitable and unjust to tax the whole people
for improvements to particular sections, and for the
direct benefit of only a portion of the taxpayers. The
friends and advocates of the road replied to the objec-
tions by picturing the effect of this enterprise when
completed upon the general prosperity of the State and
the enhancement of values, and consequent increase of
resources, and the means of meetino; and discharfrins;
the State's debts contracted for the building and equip-
ment of the road, by the opening of anew outlet of travel
and commerce to the ocean and 2:ulf throu";h the heart of
this State.
Under the rapid historic development of the country
within the State, and increase of trade and travel from
beyond her limits, and the verification of the theories of
the projectors and advocates of the road, the popular pre-
judice against it as a public work abated; and the people
realized the immense value and benefit they had acquired
UNDER JOSEPH E. BROWN. 131
through the superior wisdom of the men they had opposed
and censured for incurrino; State debts to build it.
But the history of the road, the financial management
of it, and the popular feeling growing out of the adverse
criticisms of the party out of power, and not enjoying the
emoluments of the offices and contracts which the party
in power had at command and to bestow, had precipitated
difficulties, and great perplexities, to the immediate prede-
cessors of Governor Brown.
The personal integrity and honesty of Governors
Towns, Cobb, and Johnson, who had the administration
of the State and road for the ten years preceding, were
beyond all question by candid men. Still, in spite of all
vigilance on their part, complaints against them, and
against the Democratic party in power under their ad-
ministrations of partiality and favoritism for party
purposes, and of fraud and peculation, and private specula-
tion on the part of officers and employees were rife,
through the partisan press, in public orations, and private
discussions of the people. The road was held up to the
public as a huge and overpowerincr means of political
and partisan power and control over the people in elec-
tions, through the influence of men enjoying and seeking
personal advantage and gain.
The Democratic masses did not credit the charges made
against their Governors, and the party under their admin-
istrations adhered firmly and truly to the integrity of
Governor Johnson, whose purity of character was above
all suspicion for the four years he had been in power.
Still the people, while not willing to quit the party on
account of individual abuses and wrongs brought to their
attention, earnestly desired some system of reform in the
administration of the road, that would quiet, and effect-
132 GOVERNMENT OF GEORGIA
ually stop the clamors of the opposition, by the removal
of every appearance of the wrongs complained of. Such
Avas the public temper at the time Governor Johnson re-
tired, and Governor Brown was installed.
He had resided in the section of the State through
which the road was located, been engaged in the law
practice, and presided as judge when its affairs had been
investigated, and had been called on as a Democratic
leader and public speaker to defend his party against the
multitude of charges made against its management. He
not only knew and felt the public temper and desire, but
understood to what extent there was just cause of com-
plaint. He not only was endowed with superior compre-
hension and ability, as well as sleepless vigilance and tire-
less energy, but had more nerve, moral courage, and
inflexible will to work out the desired reform than any of
the public men of the State probably possessed at that
time. And with all these, he combined an honest pur-
pose to bring about the much desired reform ; to cut off
extravagance, peculation, and waste, and to make the
road a source of revenue in lieu of an expense and bur-
den to the State.
Like his predecessors, he lived to see that it was a
moral impossibility to silence all complaints. The an-
tagonism excited by displacements and removals inaugu-
rated a system of severe espionage and criticism upon all
his official action.
These complaints from the opposing party soon ceased,
and that party derived satisfaction from Democratic dis-
content. The Governor was subjected to the criticisms
and murmurings of displeased men of his own party.
He appointed Dr. John W. Lewis general superintendent
of the road. A man unlike himself in nge and experi-
UNDEE JOSEPH E. BROWK 133
ence, but, like himself, a Democrat in full accord with the
principles and high aims of the party, and a man of great
personal integrity, industry, and of economy and success
in his own private affairs, who carried with him into this
high and responsible and perplexing office not only the
purpose to administer it faithfully and honestly, to make
the road a financial success to the State, and thus pre-
serve and enlarge his own reputation, but to enhance
that of the young Governor by whom he had been ap-
pointed, and whom it was his own pride and happiness
to have aided in his early struggles to complete his edu-
cation. And who, like his chief, had been long annoyed
by complaints, true and false, of malversation on the part
of under officers and employees, and who was, therefore,
in full accord with him in the purpose to reform all real
abuses, and disarm enemies of the accustomed luxury of
complaining even at the appearance of waste.
No time was lost, or pains spared in carrying these aims
and purposes into execution. And with the inauguration
of rigid and inflexible economy, there arose a merciless
complaint — notof waste, corruption, malversation, or pecu-
lation— for all appearance of these had instantaneously
disappeared ; but of alleged niggardly economy and
downright stinginess, as well as a total want of financial
liberality on the part of the management. Dr. Lewis was
assailed with severe complaints on account of his prompt
action and stern adherence to the policy of his chief,
which challenged his own unqualified approval, and with
jest and ridicule for alleged penuriousness. But with
the nerve and firmness only equalled by that of his chief,
he disregarded them all and plied his mind and all his
energies to make the policy, what it proved to be, a
grand success for the State. Discontented people even
134 GOVERNMENT OF GEORGIA
directed their criticism to the Governor himself, and did
not scruple to refer to the republican simplicity and well
regulated economy of his own household and private
aflairs.
He never drank or encouraged the drinking of intoxi- •
eating liquors before or after he became Governor, and
could not use tobacco or endure the smoke of it. These
long enjoyed excitant luxuries were discontinued in the
receptions of the mansion ; and that which was based on
principle, and his exalted conceptions of morality, and his
decided convictions of the ruinous effects of the example
of drinking in high life, was attributed to stinginess, or
ill advised and distasteful economy on the part of a high
public officer, who was expected to cater to the culti-
vated taste and the appetite of the people with whom he
had official or social contact.
But all complaint and criticism were powerless to shake
his purposes, or to unsettle the fixed principles of a life
shaped by them in private, and carried with all their
strength and vigor into the administration of the State, in
all her multiplied interests.
The connections of the road were about being largely
extended by the completion of the roads northwest of
Chattanooga, its western terminus, by which there was
an increase in the gross income. By reason of the re-
form inaugurated, the stopping of unnecessary waste,
and useless expenditure, the comparative expenses were
diminished, and there began a rapid increase in the net
earnings and profits of the road, which were paid monthly
into the treasury of the State from that of the road. As
a natural consequence, the popularity of the Governor
widened, and grew in intensity, and confidence, and ap-
proval, and support extended to all classes and parties, in
UNDER JOSEPH E. BROWN. 135
every section of the State. And the matters alleged
against the Governor, of an excess of economy, and an
over zeal in stopping leaks, and cutting off useless ex-
penses, were such as to magnify his popularity with the
people, and to strengthen their purposes to support and
uphold his administration. These purposes became so
general and fixed wath the large majority of the people
of the State, that no public man could assail the wisdom,
or question the integrity of his administration, without
depreciating himself in public confidence.
In November, 1853, the retiring Governor Cobb, in
his annual message, reviewed the affairs of the road, its
management and government, advocating a uniform
system of government by superintendent appointed by,
in harmony with, and amenable to the Governor, and
opposed to its sale as had been suggested. He brought
before the Legislature the difficulties and embarrassments
attending: it, and recommended '•'• to lease the road under
an act of incorporation. Let a charter be granted with a
capital stock of $500,000, in shares of $100 each, etc."
The General Assembly how^ever did not see fit to carry
out his plan, but continued the government of the road
under his successor, Governor Johnson.
He, after two years of trial and vexation under the
system, in his message of November, 1855, made the fol-
lowing statement and recommendation : —
" The Road is the people's property, constructed for their common benefit
and therefore it is peculiarly appropriate for you, as their representatives, to
prescribe the line of policy to be pursued. Nor is it necessary to discuss the
various plans suggested for its future management. Some insist that it
should be sold, either in part or in whole, so as to sever its ownership from
the State, or to give its control to private individuals. Others urge that it
should be leaded for a term of years. These propositions were discussed by
my immediate predecessor, and considered by the last Legislature. They
136 GOVERNMENT OF GEOEGIA
have also, in tlie mean time, engaged the popular mind, to a considerable
extent, and you are doubtless prepared to represent correctly, by your action,
the public sentiment. Another mode proposed is, to place its management
in the hands of a board, composed of three Commissioners, to be chosen by
the people. I refer to these propositions to demonstrate what I believe to
be indispensable to meet the expectations of the people of the whole State,
and that is, the necessity of removing its administration beyond the arena
of politics — of taking it from Executive control — of making it independent
of party influences, However widely different these* various propositions
are, they afford conclusive evidence of the restlessness of the popular mind
on the subject. The sentiment is all pervading, and is manifested in a
thousand forms, that this is expected and demanded at your hands. How it
shall be done is the question for your wisdom. I Iiave no hesitation in
expressing the firm belief, that it were better to adopt any one of these pro-
positions, than to permit the road to be managed under the present mode of
its organization. The idea of this vast capital being subject to the fluctua-
tions of party politics — confided to agents, who, as a general rule will be
changed every two years, in obedience to the utterances of the ballot box, is
preposterous and ridiculous in the extreme. Ii is only railroad men who
understand the conduct of these great works. Politicians, who aspire to
gubernatorial honors, know but little, if anything, about it. How absurd,
therefore, to place the Executive at the head of the road — inexperienced and
therefore disqualified — and expect him to manage it with skill and success?
How unjust to him — how hazardous to the interest of the people, to saddle
hitn with so heavy a responsibility. Without disparagement to predecessors,
it is believed that the road has never been better managed than it has been
during the last two years. Economy and punctuality, in every department,
have been enforced — not a dollar lost by defalcation — not a dollar recovered
in litigation for damages which accrued within that period — but few and
slight disasters from running off or collisions of trains — and yet the dissat-
isfaction and complaint, in certain quarters, are deep and loud. All, all
demonstrating that the policy of severing it from Executive control is
absolutely imperative. I respectfully urge the Legislature to do it."
The General Assembly, large as was the measure of
confidence in the wisdom of their re-elected Governor,
declined to carry out his wish to have the government of
the road separated from Executive control.
On retiring in November, 1857, his message contains
this statement : —
" Its gross earnings from the 30th September, 1853, to the 30th of Septem-
ber, 1857, which covers the four years of my administration, have been
UXDER JOSEPH E. BEOW>T. 137
$3,052,260.82. The working expenses of the road for the same period have
been 81, 329,411. .51, and the net earnings 51,722,819.31. How has this large
amount of net profits been disposed of ? Has it been squandered or applied
to necessary expenditures ? These are questions which should be answered
to the satisfaction of the people, and when thus answered, the senseless
clamor which is raised against the management of the road, for mere
decency's sake, ought to cease. Then see how the account stand-.
Net earnings for four years, §1,722,819.31."
To which is a tabular statement of the expenditure of
the entire amount, of which were paid into the State
treasury for 1854, $50,000 : 1855, §100,000 : 1856, §43,-
500: 1857, $100,000 : The balance mainly for locomo-
tives, tracks, depots, cars, etc.
And upon this the Governor makes this comment :
" Whether these expenditures were proper, is left for fair minded men to
determine. They, at least, seem suited to the enterprise, and cannot be con-
sidered unreasonable, when it is recollected that the road is not even yet com-
pleted and thoroughly equipped for the annually increasing business it is
compelled to accommodate. At all events, it ■will scarcely be asserted by any
having a due regard for veracity, that the money has been either stolen or
waited. But these heavy expenditures will not be required hereafter. The
time has come for the patience of the friends of the road to have its reward. I
fully concur with the Superintendent, that henceforth, under proper manage-
ment, it will pay into the State Treasury §3-50,000 annually.
" It may be suggested, however, that the mismanagement is not in the
application of the net earnings, but in the expenses of maintaining and work-
ing the road. Let us see how the .State Road compares, in this respect, with
other roads in the State, what proportion the current expenses bear to the
gross earnings. The gross earnings of the Georgia Railroad, for the last four
years, were §1,016,34:6. li ; the expense for working and maintaining it, for
the same period, were 81,848,617.02, or about 45 per cent. The gross earn-
ings of the Macon & Western road, for the four years, from December,
1852, to December, 1856, were §1,290,445.00, and the working expenses for
the same period, §468,840.00, or 50|^ per cent. The gross earnings of the
Central Railroad, including the line from Gordon to Eatonton, from December
1, 1853, to December 1, 1856, and the line from Millen to Augusta, to the
1st of January, 1856, were §4,697,269.68 ; and the current expenses for the
same period, were §2,219,043.17, or 47J per cent. These are confessedly the
best managed company roads in Georgia. But the Western & Atlantic
Railroad compares favorably with them in reference to the point under con-
sideration. Its gross earnings for the last four years are §3,052,260.82,
138 GOVERNMENT OF GEORGIA
and its working expenses, for the same period, ^1,329,411-51, or a little less
than 43^ per cent. It would seem that the country might afford to be satis-
fied, if the State road be managed as cheaply as those of private companies.
Certainly the fact is worthy of consideration, when its administration is
branded with corruption and mismanagement."
With this the Executive authority of the State, which
continued to hold the manao:ement of the Western &
Atlantic Railroad, passed into the hands of Joseph E.
Brown, w^here both remained up to and during the late
war, and the surrender of the State with the Confederate
authorities and property at its close.
The results of Governor Brown's policy and sagacity,
his energy and firmness, are briefly stated in the following ■.^-^'
extract from his annual message in November, 1859, and
after his re-election as Governor.
"For information in reference to the condition, management and incomes
of the Western & Atlantic Railroad for the year ending 30th September
last, you are referred to the Report of Dr. John W. Lewis, its very vigilant,
efficient, and worthy Superintendent. I feel that I do but an act of justice
when I say that in my opinion the State has at no time had connected with
the road, in any capacity, a more competent, trustworthy, and valuable public
servant. It will be seen by reference to his Report, that the sum of §102,000
in cash has been paid into the State Treasury from the net earnings of the
road during the fiscal year ending 30th September last ; and it will be seen
by the report of the State Treasurer and Comptroller General, that four hun-
dred and twenty thousand dollars have been paid into the Treasury during
the fiscal year ending 20th October, 1859. The old iron on about 25 miles
of the track, has, since the 1st January, 1858, been taken up and its place
supplied with heavy new rail. The road-bed and all the superstructure and
machinery are kept in excellent order. No new debts are contracted which
are not promptly paid monthly, if demanded ; and no agent appointed or re-
tained in office during my administration is known to be a defaulter to the
amount of a single dollar.
" I confess that the amount paid into the Treasury from the road, during
the past year, has somewhat exceeded my expectations. For this I am in-
debted not only to the Superintendent, but also to the untiring efforts of the
honest, industrious, and faithful officers and agents associated with him and
under his control.
"It has, I think, been clearly shown within the last two years that the
UNDER JOSEPH E. BROWN. 139
road owned and controlled by the State is a productive piece of property,
and with proper management in future, T feel safe in the prediction that it
will remain so and that the incomes from it will continue to increase with
the increase of population, business, and wealth in the country.
"So long as the road remains under my control I invite strict scrutiny
into its management; for I subscribe fully to the doctrine that it is proper
to hold public functionaries to rigid accountability. And I am willing that
judgment be pronounced upon my official conduct under the application of
this rule.
" In the construction of the road under State management it is not doubted
that there were in many instances too lavish an expenditure of the public
money, and that it cost a much larger sum than it should have cost. I am
not prepared on that account, however, to admit that any good reason exists
why a State may not manage a great public work of this character with as
much honesty, economy, and success as a corporation. To accomplish this
object it is only necessary that the officer having the appointing power select
agents who are competent, honest, and faithful ; that he lay down strict rules for
the government of their conduct ; that he give so much of his individual atten-
tion to the work as will enable him to know whether or not those rules are
violated ; and, in every case where he discovers he has been deceived in the
selection of a proper agent, or, where an agent has palpably violated the
rules laid down for his government, that he may have the moral firmness
and nerve without regard to personal considerations, to apply the corrective
by a prompt removal. The observance of these rules is, in my opinion, a
duty of the appointing power from which he should never shrink. If he
performs this duty he can seldom fail of success.
" Regarding it as a matter of interest, I have endeavored at the expense of
considerable labor, to ascertain the original cost of the State Road ; but I
find it impossible, for the reasons given in the able and very valuable report
of Col. P. Thweatt, comptroller general, who has also given much attention
to this subject, to arrive at a conclusion with entire accuracy. It is believed
that the report of Mr. Garnett, then chief engineer, made in 1847 of the
amount expended to that ti^ie is about correct. He estimates the whole cost
to the date of his report at $3,305,165.88. Since that time there has been
appropriate!] to the construction of the road, its equipments, etc., in cash and
in the bonds of the State, the sura of $1,136,360.27. Add these sums together
and we have $1,411,532.15 as the total amount appropriated by the Legis-
lature, and paid out of the State treasury for the construction and equipment
of the road. This, in my opinion, is a very near approximation to correct-
ness.
"I am aware that some persons, in accounting for the gross incomes of the
road since its completion, have charged large amounts of these incomes to
construction. These sums were, I think, generally more properly chargeable
to repairs, &c, than to original coustruction. As an instance, the Etowah
140 GOVERNMENT OF GEOEGIA
bridge was burned down some years after the road had been in operation,
and it became necessary to build a new one. The cost of this could not
properly be chargeable to original construction, but was, I think, properly
chargeable to repairs on account of casualty.
"A portion of the iron originally laid down on the track became so much
worn as to be unsafe, and it was necessary to procure and lay down new iron
in its place. The cost of this also was properly chargeable to repairs and
not to original construction. If a Depot building was sufficient, when the
road was completed, to accommodate all who had business at the i^lace, but
which afterwards, on account of the decay of the structure or increase of
business at the location, was found to be insufficient, and it became necessary
to build a new one, its cost could not justly be charged to original construc-
tion.
" Without multiplying instances of this kind, I conclude that as soon as
the Legislature had appropriated a sufficient sum to complete the road, and
to place upon it the superstructure and machinery necessary to the transac-
tion of the business offered by the country to the road, the original construc-
tion account was at an end, and that all such enlargement of buildings, re-
construction of bridges, renewals of superstructure repairs of track, &c., &c.,
as were afterwards required for the safety of transportation and travel over
the road, or for the accommodation of increased business, is properly charge-
able to expense of keeping up the road, and not to expense of building and
putting it into operation. Had the road remained unproductive to the
Treasury for a quarter of a century, on account of bad crops, casualties fi'om
fire or flood, commercial pressure, bad management, or from any other cause,
it could only have been evidence that the original investment was an unfor-
tunate one for the time ; but surely the repairs made and all the State's
losses during that time, could not, in justice to the officers afterwards iu
charge of the road, be properly chargeable to original cost in calculating the
per cent, which the road might afterwards pay upon the original investment.
Estimating the original cost, therefore, at ?l,-i41,532 15, the road during the
past fiscal year (ending 2' )th October last) has paid into the treasury of the State
nearly nine and a half per cent, upon the original investment. And it should
not be forgotton in this connection that it was built at a time when rail-
roading was not well understood, and that it was built as a public work, at
a cost greatly more than would have been expended iu its construction, even
at that time, by a private company.
" Had the same economy been used which is usually practised by private
companies, the whole cost of the road would not probably have exceeded, if
it even had amounted to, §3,000,000.
" The sum paid into the treasury during the past year is fourteen per cent,
upon that sum. In comparing the present management of the road with
company management, it is certainly just to the present officers, who did
not build it, to count the per cent, upon such sum only as the road should rea-
UNDER JOSEPPI E. BROWK 141
sonably have cost had it been built by a company, and not upon such sum
as it may have cost under the extravagant system which is sometimes prac-
tised in the original construction of public works."
After three years' trial, in the annual message of No-
vember, 1860, the Governor thus states the result of the
last year's operations :
" It will be seen upon an examination of the report of Dr. John W. Lewis,
the able and faithful superintendent of the State Road, that the road is in
excellent condition in every department, and that the net amount paid into
the State treasury for the past fiscal year is $45'',000. This sum has been
paid into the treasury after deducting all expenditures and making all neces-
sary repairs, and after paying $22 940 of bonds and coupons of the funded
debt of the road, which fell due 1st January and July last, together with
over ten thousand dollars of other old claims, which originated before the
commencement of my term in office, and wliich had been for years in litiga-
tion. It affords me pleasure to add that the officers of the road, in every
department of its management, have generally been diligent and attentive
and have acquitted themselves with much credit during the past year."
Internal Improvements by the State,
As early as November, 1855, Governor Johnson, while
he announced the opinion to the Legislature that it was
unwise and inexpedient to appropriate money or sub-
scribe stock by the State to aid in the construction of rail-
roads, favored the idea of " completing the skeleton of the
system so as to extend an arm into each of the grand geo-
graphical sections or divisions of the State, by lending her
credit under securities and guarantees, w^hich would place
her beyond the contingency of ultimate liability and loss."
He sanctioned and approved the Atlantic & Gulf
Eoad charter, which provided for $500,000 stock by the
State in it, while he disapproved of the plan of granting
State aid.
In November, 1857, he announced to the General As-
sembly that, '• in granting new railroad charters they
should never lose sight of the' policy of protecting her
142 GOVERNMENT OF GEORGIA
State Eoad from ruinous competition ; she should be care-
ful not to cripple the efficacy of company roads which
have been built by private capital ; she should preserve
the symmetry of the system of our internal improvements,
so that in its further development and growth to maturity
it shall, as a primary object, promote her own wealth and
the prosperity of her towns and seaports."
He adds —
" Augusta, Savannah, and Brunswick are the three points of commerce at
vhich the productions of our agriculture must find their market and their
door of exit to the marts of the world. The perfection of our internal im-
provement system, as well as the interests of agriculture; requires that each
of these commercial points shall be connected as directly as possible with
each section of the State, so that all our people may enjoy a choice of markets
for the sale of their produce. The State may aid in the construction of lines
of road projected in reference to such connections, upon guaranties of se-
curity that prevent the possibility of ultimate loss. Beyond this she ought
not to go. As to the mode in which she should extend her aid, I prefer the
loan of her credit for a given amount per mile, to a subscription for stock.
By the former method she can secure herself by statutory lien upon the road
and its appurtenances; whereas, by the latter, she must rely upon the suc-
cess and profits of the enterprise."
When Governor Brown came into office the incomplete
railway system of the State was of paramount importance,
and public opinion, w^hile it favored progress and exten-
sion of the system, was by no means harmonious as to
the part the State should take in providing means for the
purpose. Many people regarded the prospective profits
as a sufficient inducement to private capital, controlled by
intelligence, to assure the construction of all roads that
were required by commerce and travel, and that as a
natural sequence they would be constructed in due time.
They favored liberal charters to private companies, and
opposed the policy of the States furnishing money or in-
curring pecuniary obligations to build them.
UNDER JOSEPH E. BROWN. 143
Others regarded the matter in the light of pubhc policy
and the demands of the situation to keep pace with the
improvements in progress on the east, north, and west of
us; and the immense advantages of leading in the gen-
eral scheme, so that this State shall have a controlling in-
fluence in the general system of improvements, and for
the more direct effects of equalizing the benefits among
all the people and every section of the State ; and for the
general enhancement of values and increase to the State
of her sources of revenue.
It was an issue between progressive democracy on the
one hand, and stationary and cautious conservatism on
the other. It was an issue to summon the decisive
energy, and put in action the mental and moral force of
the popular young Governor, who was in all his nature,
his antecedents, and his impulses, as w^ell as fixed opin-
ions, a man of progress. And the threatened evils were
of sufficient moment to make the matter of securing the
State one of equal importance with that of internal im-
provements. In his first annual message he took the fol-
lowing bold ground after reviewing the State's relations
with existing roads.
" Other sections of the State are still destitute of the advantages of rail-
i:oad facilities. I am decidedly of opinion that it would be good policy for
the State to lend her credit to aid in the construction of such roads as may
be necessary to develop her vast resources, provided she be made perfectly
secure beyond doubt against ultimate loss. This could be done by the en-
dorsement of the bonds of the company, by the State, after a certain pro-
portion of the road is first completed, for an amount sufficient to enable
the company to purchase iron for the road. The bonds thus endorsed should be
made payable tvrenty years after date, with six per cent, interest, payable
semi-annually ; and let the State take a mortgage upon the entire road, and
all its appurtenances, declared by law to be prior to all other liens ; to be fore-
closed, and the road and its appurtenances sold in sixty or ninety days after
the failure of the company to pay any instalment of either interest or prin-
cipal when due. And in the event the whole road and its appurtenances
144 GOVERXMEXT OF GEORGIA
should fail under such mortgage sale to bring a sum sufficient to pay the
entire amount for which the State shall have become liable, on account of the
company, let the law provide that each solvent stockholder shall be lij^le to
the State, according to the number of the shares he may own, for his propor-
tion of the deficiency. This, in my judgment, would make the State secure;
while it would enable each company engaged in the construction of a road
necessary to the development of the resources of the State, to obtain the
money requisite to its completion, upon such time and terms as would enable
the company, should the road prove as remunerative as its projectors antici-
pated, to refund it out of the future net earnings of the road. Of course
such a law should be a general one, alike applicable to all roads in any part
of the State, in the benefits of which, all roads now in process of construc-
tion, or to be hereafter projected, on equal and well defined terms, conditions
and limitations, might participate. Guard the State against i^ossibility of
loss, and I am decidedly in favor of State aid, by lending her credit in the
construction of all such roads as may be necessary to the prosperity of her
people, and the development of her resources."
A year Later, reviewing and reiterating the opinions
above expressed, and urging that " the law if passed
should be a general one, giving to everj^ company in the
State, engaged in the construction of a railroad, the same
aid, subject to the same liability," and elaborately arguing
the policy, he answers one of the formidable objections
in the following :
"It is sometimes said that in justice to the railroad companies already in
existence, the State should not aid or encourage the building of other roads
which may come in competition with those now in operation. Some of
these companies are now making very large profits, and while I desire to see
them prosper, and would not wish to see their dividends reduced below a
point where the stock would be reasonably profitable, no matter how much
other interests might be thereby promoted, I am unwilling that such sections
of the State as are without railroads should be denied their benefits on the
ground that the large incomes of some of the wealthy companies now in ex-
istence might be reduced by giving these sections an opportunity to partici-
pate in the advantages which would result to thera from the construction of
other roads. Indeed, I entertain no doubt that the interest of the jieople re-
quires that the number of roads be increased till no one shall have a monop-
oly of the business of any very large portion of the State, provided that each
shall be left with sufficient business to make its stock reasonably renuraera-
tive. The greater the competition between the roads the lower will be
UNDER JOSEPH E. BROWK. , ]45
the freight and fare, and the better for the interest of those who travel and
ship freight over them. When there is no competition, for the purpose of
accumulating larger incomes the freights are usually placed by the Company
at a very high figure, and the shipper must bear the loss.
" Again, I deny that any Company has a right to complain that injustice
has been done it by the State should she permit or encourage the building
of such roads as the interest of her people in different sections require, which
do not in any manner violate the chartered rights of such company. Most
of our railroad charters contain guaranties to the respective companies that
no lateral road shall be built within a certain number of miles of the road of
the company to which the guaranty is given ; say twenty miles, as an in-
stance. These corporations claim that the charter is a contract between the
State and the company, and they cling with tenacity to every chartered
right given them by this contract, and exercise it, if profitable, no matter
how onerous its exercise by them may be to other interests in the State.
They should therefore be content with the contract ; and should not be
heard to complain when the State exercises rights reserved by her when she
granted to them their charters. The State, in the case above supposed, as
an instance, when she granted the charter, guarantied to the company an
exclusive right over a strip of her territory forty miles wide. With this
guaranty they were content, accepted the charter, invested their money, and
built the road. The interest of a large number of persons outside of the lim-
its embraced in the guaranty probably afterwards requires that they have a
road; the State encourages its construction and it is built. What injustice
is done to the first company and how have they been deceived? They have
the full measure of their rights, and the full benefits of what they insist upon
as their contract. It is true, they may not have so large a monopoly as they
desire, but they have all they contracted for, while another portion of the
State is developed, and the people have the benefits of low freights resulting
from the competition.
" The State has taken stock in two railroad companies. I oppose this
policy, and do not think she should be a partner with her citizens in such an
enterprise. My opinion is that she should have no interest in any property
over which she has not the entire control. By endorsing the bonds of the
company, with ample security, she complicates herself with none of its pri-
vate management or affairs. "
The policy recommended was never fully adopted ; the
intervention of war operated to impede the progress of
internal improvement as well as public and common school
education. No general bill such as that recommended by
Governor Brown was passed after the war. The Georgia
10
146 GOVERNMENT OF GEORGIA
Air Line road, chartered in 1856, obtained from the Legis-
lature in 1868 an act to lend the credit of the State to
that enterprise, upon the plan of Governor Brown, as to
the security of the State against loss by first mortgage
lien, and the endorsement of the State of the bonds of the
company. Numerous bills of like character in favor of
other roads were enacted. But, unfortunately for the
State, she wanted the sagacity, care, vigilance, and firm-
ness of Governor Brown to protect her against gross
frauds, as will appear in the history of the administration
of Governor Rufus B. Bullock, from July, 1868, to Octo-
ber, 1871.
Common School Education.
On account of the revolution in public opinion and feel-
ing in the last twenty years in this Slate, which presents
60 widely different a situation now from what we know to
have existed then ; and on account of what has actually
been achieved in general and popular education in the
last decade ; and in view of the neglect of previous Legis-
latures to provide any system of public education that de-
served the name, it is difficult to realize and appreciate
the forecast and liberal views of the Governor, and the
boldness with which he pressed upon the Legislature the
subject of common school education.
While he set his head and bent all his energies to the
subject of retrenchment, economy, and reform in every de-
partment and all the details of government, and to the
most rigid scrutiny into everything to be supported or
paid for by the State, wherein a dollar might be saved,
he exhibited views and plans for the education of the
people of the State that were by many regarded as prof-
ligate and extravagant, not to say visionary ; and brought
them before the Legislature at the end of the first year of
UNDER JOSEPH E. BROWN. 147
his administration ; which are set forth in the following
extract from his message of November, 1858.
"The public debt of the State amounts at present to $2,630,500, payable at
different times during the next twenty years. A large portion of this debt
has been contracted from time to time on account of the State Road. This
debt, it will be remembered, is subject by legislation, already had, to be in-
creased $900,000 on account of the State's subscription for stock in the At-
lantic & Gulf Railroad Company, This would make the whole debt $3,-
530,500, should no part of it be redeemed before the bonds of the State for
the above mentioned $900,000 shall have been issued. By the terms of the
contract with the bondholders, $289,500 of this debt is now subject to be
paid at the option of the State, though payment cannot be demanded till
1863 and 1868. The Central Bank bonds are also falling due in considerable
sums annually. Good faith requires that the debts of the State be promptly
met when due. And sound policy dictates that such bonds as are due or not,
at the option of the State, be taken up as fast as she has the means.
"The net earnings of the Western & Atlantic railroad are already pledged
for the payment of a large portiou of this debt. I therefore recommend the
passage of an act setting apart $200 000 per annum of the net earnings of
the road to be applied in payment and purchase of the public debt. And, in
view of the great and acknowledged necessity existing for the education of
the children of the State, and of the immense advantages which would result
from the establishment of a practical common school system, I further
recommend that a sum as large as the entire amount of the public debt be
set apart as a permanent common school fund for Georgia, to be increased as
fast as the public debt is diminished ; and that the faith of the State be
solemnly pledged that no part of this sum shall ever be applied to, or appro-
priated for, any other purpose than that of education. Let the act make it
the duty of the Governor each year as soon as he shall have taken up the
$200,000 of the State's bonds, to issue $200,000 of new bonds, payable at
some distant period to be fixed by the Legislature, to the secretary of State
as trustee of the common school fund of the State, with semi-annual interest
at six per cent, per annum, the bonds to be deposited in the office of the
secretary of State. As the public debt is thus annually diminished, the
school fund will be annually increased, until the whole debt is paid to the
creditors of the State, and the amount paid converted into a school fund.
And as the fund is increased from year to year, the amount of interest to be
used for school purposes will be likewise increased.
" Should this plan be adopted, in a few years the school fund of Georgia,
including the present fund for that purpose, would be in round numbers
$4,000,000. The amount of interest accruing from this fund, to be expended
in erecting school-houses and paying teachers, would be $240,000 per annum.
I am aware of the difficulties which have been encountered by those who
148 GOVERNMENT OF GEORGIA
have attempted heretofore to devise a practical and equal school system for
the State, owing in a great degree, it is believed, to the fact that portions of
our State are very densely, while others are quite sparsely populated. But
the fact of our inability to accomplish all we may desire is no sufficient rea-
son why we should neglect to do that which is in our power. Probably the
principal cause of our failure in the past is attributable to a lack of funds
and of competent teachers.
" With the gradual increase of the fund proposed, it is not doubted that
the wisdom of our State would, from time to time, improve our present
defective system till it would be so perfected as to afford the advantages of
an education to all or nearly all the children of the State. Let the teachers
be paid by the State, and let every free white child in the State have an
equal right to attend and receive instruction in the public schools. Let it be
a common school, not a poor-school system. Let the children of the richest
aYid the poorest parents in the State meet in the school-room on terms of
perfect equality of right. Let there be no aristocracy there but an aristocracy
of color and of conduct. In other words, let every free white child in Georgia,
whose conduct is good, stand upon an equality of right with any and every
other one in the school-room. In this way the advantages of education might
be gradually diffused among the people; and many of the noblest intellects in
Georgia, now bedimmed by poverty and not developed for want of educa-
tion, might be made to shine forth in all their splendor, blessing both church
and State by their noble deeds.
" Should $i,000,000 be insufficient to raise annually the sum required, the
fund might be increased from the incomes of the road to any amount neces-
sary to accomplish the object. The interest on this fund should be semi-
annually distributed equally, among the counties, in proportion to the whole
number of free white children in each, between six and sixteen, or of such
other age as the Legislature may designate. Authority should also be left
with each county to tax itself, at its own pleasure to increase its school fund,
as at present. And it should be left to the inferior court, or school commis-
sioners of each county, to lay off the county into such school districts as will
be most convenient to its population, having due regard to their number and
condition.
EDUCATIOX OF TEACHERS.
" Assuming that provision will thus be made to raise all the funds neces-
sary to build school-houses and pay the teachers to educate all the free white
children of the State, the next question which presents itself, and perhaps
the most important one of all, is, how shall the State supply herself with
competent teachers? raised in her midst and devoted to her interests and in-
stitutions?— southern men, with southern hearts, and southern sentiments?
" For the purpose of educating Georgia teachers in Georgia colleges, I pro-
pose that the State issue her bonds payable at such distant times as the Leg-
islature may designate, bearing interest at seven per cent, payable semi-an-
UNDER JOSEPH E. BROWK 149
nually. The interest to be paid out of the net earnings of the State Road ;
and the bonds be redeemed out of its proceeds, should it ever be sold. That
she deliver $200,000 of these bonds to the State University at Athens, as an
additional endowment ; |50,000 to the Georgia Military Institute, at Mari-
etta, and $50,000 to each of the denominational Colleges in the State, in
consideration that each of said five Colleges will bind itself to educate,
annually, one young man as a State student for every $200 of annual interest
which the endowment given by the State pays to the College ; furnishing
him with board, lodging, lights, washing, tuition, and all necessary expenses
except clothing, which might be furnished by the student himself or his par-
ents. The interest on this $400,000 of bonds would be $28,000 per annum.
This sum would maintain and instruct as above suggested one hundred and
forty young men annually, being one from each county in the State, and
two from each of the fourteen counties having the largest population, unless
other new counties are formed. I propose that these young men be selected
from all the counties in the State, from that class only of young men whose
parents are unable to educate them, and that only such be selected as are of
good moral character, industrious and attentive, who desire an education,
and who give promise of future usefulness. That the selection be made in
each county by a competent committee appointed by the Inferior Court,
after an examination at some public place in the county of all such young
men as desire to become beneficiaries, and will attend on a day to be fixed
by the Inferior Court, after giving due notice. Let the committee be sworn
that they will be governed in the selection by the merits of the applicant,
without prejudice or partiality ; and that they will select no one whose par-
ents are known to be able to give him a collegiate education without doing
injustice to the rest of his family. And I propose that the place of any such
student in college be supplied by another, whenever the faculty of the college
shall certify to the inferior court of his county that he is neglecting his
studies or failing to make reasonable progress, or that he has become ad-
dicted to immoral habits. I propose that the State, in this manner, give to
each of the poor young men thus selected his collegiate education, on condi-
tion that he will enter into a pledge of honor to make teaching his profession
in the county from which he is sent for as many years as he shall have been
maintained and educated by the State in college ; the State permitting him
to enjoy the incomes of his labor, but requiring him to labor as a teacher.
" Many of these young gentlemen would, no doubt, adopt teaching as their
profession for life. This would supply the State after a few years with com-
petent teachers. And as these young men while teaching in various coun-
ties in the State would prepare others to teach without going to college, pure
streams of learning would thus be caused to flow out from the colleges, and
be diffused among the masses of the people throughout the State. Then
we would not so often hear the complaint that the child must unlearn at one
school what it has taken it months perhaps to learn at another under an
150 GOVERNMENT OF GEORGIA
incompetent teacher. This plan is intended to equalize, as far as possible,
the poor with the rich, by giving to as many of them as possible, at the ex-
pense of the State, an opportunity to educate their sons in college, a privi-
lege at present confined almost exclusivtdy to the rich ; as poor men have
not means to educate their sons, however deserving and promising they may
be.
" Under the plan above proposed it is not intended to make a donation,
or absolute gift to the colleges, of a single dollar of the bonds of the State.
It is intended only to deliver the bonds to the colleges and to pay to them
the interest, semi-annually, as a compensation for them to maintain and edu-
cate annually, one hundred and forty young men of promise, who could in
no other way enjoy the advantages of a liberal education; who in turn are
to diffuse intelligence among the great body of the people, thereby supplying
the State with Georgia teachers well qualified to teach the youth of Georgia ;
and who would be, at the same time, the natural friends of her institutions.
As part of this plan I also propose tliat a General Superintendent of schools
for the State be appointed with a salary suSicient to secure the best talent,
whose duty it shall be to collect valuable information upon the subject, and
report annually to the Executive, to be laid before the Legislature; and to
traverse the State in every direction, visit the schools, address the people,
and do all in his power to create a lively interest on the subject of education.
" Carry out this plan and who can estimate its benefits on the State ? I
regard the education of the children of the State as the grand object of
primary importance, which should, if necessary, take precedence of all other
questions of State policy. For I apprehend it will be readily admitted by
every intelligent person, that the stability and permanence of our republican
institutions hang upon the intelligence and virtue of our people. Xo mon-
arch rules here ! And it is the pride of our system of government that each
citizen at the ballot box possesses equal rights of sovereignty with every
other one. Thanks be to our Heavenly Father, the popular voice cannot
here be hushed in the silence of despotism, but the popular will dictates the
laws. May it thus ever remain ! How important it is, therefore, that the
masses of the people be educated so each may be able to read, and under-
stand for himself, the constitution and history of his country, and to judge
and decide for himself what are the true principles and policy of his govern-
ment. But how much more important it is, in m}' opinion, that every person
in the State be enabled to read for him or herself the Holy Bible, and to
comprehend the great principles of Christianity, in the eternal truths of
which, I am a firm, though humble believer. Educate the masses and in-
culcate virtue and morality, and you lay broad and deep, in the hearts of
our people, the only sure foundation of republican liberty and religious
toleration ; the latter of which is the brightest gem in the constitution of
our country.
" By adopting the proposed line of policy we have it in our power, with-
UNDER JOSEPH E. BROWN. 151
out increase of taxation or burden to our people, to place Georgia, so far as
education is concerned, in the proudest position of any State in the Union.
Let her educate every son and daughter within her limits, and she may then
justly boast that she is the Empire State of not only the South, but of the
whole Union. By this plan the public debt would be reduced, and the
school fund increased, annually, $200,000; and the interest amounting yearly
to $28,000 on the bonds delivered to the colleges, would be paid semi-
annually, out of the net earnings of the State road; and there would still
be left an annual income from that source of $72,000, to be applied to other
purposes."
The Legislature did not adopt the plan of the Governor,
but took what was then regarded as an important step in
the matter of public education. The State's bank stock,
consisting of 1833 shares of the stock of the Bank of the
State of Georgia ; 890 shares of the Bank of Augusta ;
186 shares of the Georgia Railroad and Banking Co.,
_by Act of the Legislature of January, 1852, had been set
apart, as a permanent fund, for the education of the poor.
The Legislature to which this message was addressed,
added thereto an annual appropriation of $100,000 of the
net earnings of the Western & Atlantic Railroad, to be
apportioned to the white children of the counties returned
between the ages of eight and eighteen years.
His views expanded with the increase of intensity of
his mind and emotions upon the subject of education, and
as official duty and experience brought him to the con-
templation of the subject in its limitless importance to
the welfare of the people, and their descendants in the fu-
ture.
The disaster of civil war intervened to prevent the
consummation of his plans. But justice to a noble and far-
seeing patriotism and statesmanship, whose aims were thus
thwarted and their grand results withheld from the peo-
ple of the State, calls for the brief statement of his scheme
for the promotion of the higher grades of learning, pre-
152 GOVERNMENT OF GEORGIA
sen ted to the Genferal Assembly in November, 18G0, by
the permanent and hberal endowment of the
UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA.
" The far seeing Avisdom of those who framed our State constitution not
only grasped but fully comprehended the importance of promoting the Arts
and Sciences when they inserted in that instrument the foUowing clause:
" ' The Arts and Sciences shall be pi-omoted in one or more seminaries of
learning ; and the Legislature shaU, as soon as may be, give such further do-
7iations and privileges to those already established (the State University was
then established), as may be necessary to secure the objects of their insti-
tution.'
" This is still a portion of the constitution, which I, and each of you, have
sworn to ' observe, conform to, support, and defend.' Have the spirit and
intention of this provision of the constitution been carried into effect by the
Legislature in the meagre endowment which the State University has received
from the State? Have the objects for which the University was instituted
been secured ? If not, is the State not abundantly able to carry the spirit
and intention of the constitution into effect without embarrassment to her
government or burden to her people? If so, can we consistently, with the
oaths which we have taken, refuse to make the necessary appropriation?
These are questions well worthy the serious consideration of each and every
one of us. But, aside from any obligation which the constitution imposes
upon us, can we doubt the wisdom and sound statesmanship of such a course?
I cannot think that it is sound policy for Georgia to refuse to endow her
University, while her people send out of the State in a few years for the
education of their children a sum of money more than sufBcient to make the
endowment which would be necessary to draw large numbers of the youths
of other States to our University to be educated. This would cause Georgia
to receive the money of other States, for the education of their children,
instead of paying her money to other States for the education of her own.
" That State is always the most wealthy, powerful, and respected in which
knowledge is most generally diffused and learning in all its branches most
liberally encouraged. We cannot doubt that England is indebted in a very
great degree to her Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and to the influ-
ences which have gone out from them, for her ability to dictate laws to a
large portion of the world and to draw wealth from every quarter of the
globe. Nor can we deny that Massacliusetts by her liberal course towards
her Cambridge, and Connecticut by her liberality to Yale College, have greatly
enlarged their wealth at home and increased their influence abroad; and
have been able through the instrumentality of their Univei'sities to instil
into the youthful minds of the educated of all the other States of the Union
many of their own peculiar notions of religion and government, while they
have drawn millions of money from other States for the education of their
UNDER JOSEPH E. BROWN. 153
children. Georgia has contributed largely to build up Northern colleges,
and has purchased from them, or those educated by them, most of her text
and school books and much of her literature. Most of those Northern col-
leges, which have shared so largely the Southern patronage, are now hostile
to Southern institutions. Notwithstanding all this they still get Georgia
patronage, because it is believed they can furnish educational advantages
superior to those offered by Georgia colleges. This might not now have
been the case had the money sent out of Georgia by parents and guardians
for education been^expended at our own University. Is it not time we had
learned wisdom by experience ? We claim that ours is the Empire State of
the South. Why then should we refuse to endow and build up our University
where the sons of the Soutli may enjoy educational advantages equal, if not
superior, to those offered by New England colleges; where authors may be
reared and literature and school books produced which will enlighten and
elevate the minds of our youths without subjecting them to abolition taint or
New England fanaticism?
" After mature deliberation upon this question, I feel it my duty to recom-
mend the appropriation of five hundred thousand dollars, to be paid in five
annual instalments, of one hundred thousand dollars each, for the endow-
ment of our State University. This sum, added to the present endowment,
would be sufficient to construct the buildings, purchase the library and ap-
paratus, and endow the professorships, necessary to make it, in a few years,
a first class University; and would further enable the trustees to pay such
salaries as would command the services of the most distinguished professors
in the country. This would at once give the University a commanding po-
sition in the Southern States, and relieve us from the necessity of further
patronising Northern Colleges. I think the heart of every Georgian should
swell with pride at the contemplation. And I do not doubt, when the ques-
tion shall be fully discussed before our people, that they will be found to be
in advance of most of our politicians upon this subject. He who does right
will seldom have cause to fear the popular verdict.
"The aggregate taxable property of this State is supposed to be, this year,
about $700,000,000. The seventieth part of one percent, upon this sum, will
raise, annually, the 8100,000. This will be a fraction less than one cent and
a half, per annum, on each one hundred dollars' worth of taxable property,
or a fraction o\qx seven cents on each one hundred dollars of taxable property,
to be paid in Jive annual instalments.
" What Georgian is so destitute of State pride, apart from every considera-
tion of patriotism and sense of duty, that he would refuse to pay this small
sum to see our State University fully endowed, for all time to come, and put
in a position of equality with any University in the Union ? I think I know
the great masses of the farmers and mechanics of our State, who are its very
bone and sinew, and upon whom every other class of citizens is dependent for
its support, well enough to say for them, in advance, that many of our public
154 GOVERNMENT OF GEORGIA
men underrate their intelligence and liberality; and that not one in every
twenty of them, who pays tax on one thousand dollars' worth of property,
would hesitate a moment to contribute a dime and a half a year, for Jine years,
for the purpose of building up a University which would place Georgia in the
very front rank of all her Southern sisters, where the young men of tiie South
who, in future, are to conduct its government, direct its energies and defend
its honor, may be educated, without assisting by their patronage, to build up,
elsewhere, institutions at war with our dearest rights. But it is not indis-
pensably necessary that even the small additional tax above mentioned,
should be collected from the people for this purpose. Each annual payment
might be made out of the incomes of the Western & Atlantic Railroad, and
the tax at present paid by the people of this State, be reduced vfiihin the five
years; and we would still have money enough to meet promptly, in times of
peace and prosperity, all the necessary expenses of the government.
"In return for this appropriation, the University should be required to
educate and maintain, from year to year, such number of poor young men as
the Legislature which makes the appropriation, may direct. I would suggest
that the number be one from each county in the State; to be selected in such
manner as the Legislature may prescribe. The young men selected as bene-
ficiaries should be such only as have not the means to educate themselves,
and whose parents are unable to defray the expenses of a collegiate educa-
tion for them. Each should be required, when he enters the University, as
a consideration for the instruction he is about to receive from the State, to
sign a pledge of honor, that be will, if not providentially prevented, teach
school, in Georgia, as many years next after he leaves the University as he
was instructed in the University, or refund to the State the money expended
in his education with lawful interest. The benefits of a collegiate educa-
tion should not be confined to the sons of the wealthy ; but the State should
provide, as far as possible, for the education of moral young men who are
talented and promising ; and who, by reason of their poverty, are unable to
educate themselves. From this class would rise up many of our most dis-
tinguished and useful citizens. Many of the brightest and most intelligent
boys in Georgia are found among the poorest and humblest of her citizens.
Inured to labor from their infancy, when the portals of the college are
thrown open to them, they are not unfrequently found to outstrip the more
favored students; and afterwards, when they come to enter the arena of
active life, they are usually more energetic and more likely to become dis-
tinguished and useful than those whom necessity has never taught the value
of personal exertion. JNIany of these young men would make teaching a pro-
fession for life, which few of the sons of the wealthy after graduating in col-
lege are willing to do.
" It is generally admitted by the most intelligent and best informed, that
the establishment of a State University of a high character would work no
detriment to the denominational, or other colleges of the State. The gradu-
UNDER JOSEPH E. BROWN. 155
ates of our other colleges, desirous of pursuing their studies beyond the col-
lege course, and of fitting themselves, by still higher attainments in learning,
for the duties of authors, professors, etc., would transfer themselves to our
own University without being under the necessity of leaving our own State
to secure the necessary advantages. The building up of the University, upon
the plan proposed, would also do much to advance our common school pro-
ject, as it would send out in a few years a large number of young men as
teachers, truly southern in sentiment and well qualified for the position.
This would supply, in a great measure, what is now a lamentable deficiency,
and would elevate and give new life and vigor to our whole educational
system."
In the same message, the Governor recommended a
normal school for the education of female teachers, upon
the plan, " that the girls educated there divide among
themselves and do in their turn all the cooking, washing,
and other labor necessary to be done at the school.
Each would be required to furnish her own clothes. The
actual cost of maintaining each in the school would there-
fore be the prime cost of the provisions used by each, to-
gether with books, lights, and fuel. At this school, which
should be located in some healthy portion of our State,
large numbers of young females, whose parents are una-
ble to educate them, might be prepared to teach our pri-
mary schools, or indeed to teach in any of our schools.
While receiving their scholastic education at the normal
school, these 3'oung ladies would also receive a domestic
education, which would be of great utility to them in any
position which they might occupy in after life."
In all the brilliant career of Governor Brown, there
appears at this day to the writer nothing that invests his
sagacity with the appearance of prophetic wisdom
like this of educating women without elevating their
tastes, habits, and dispositions above useful labor, and
without lowering their physical capabilities below its de-
mands. If his theory could then have been applied to
156 GOVERNMENT OF GEORGIA
the education of both girls and boys, in all the South, we,
as a people, should not only have been infinitely better
prepared for the demands and prevention of war, while
raging, but for the situation after emancipation, which
summoned us to self-sustenance and self-dependence.
In his zealous advocacy of a common school system of
education, and for the education of teachers he was only
in advance, but in strict harmony, with his predecessor
Governor Johnson, who, in his retiring message, urged the
subject in strong terms upon the consideration of the
Legislature, as well as the claims of the State University
for the promotion of learning in the advanced sciences.
He says, " we need a University proper. Such its founders
designed our State college to be, and the constitution, as
I have shown, has made it obligatory on the General As-
sembly to carry that design into effect."
*******
He says, further quoting the Constitution : —
" What has been done to carry into effect this clause of your Constitution?
How little? It has reference mainly to the State University, which had been
chartered in 1875. Hence, it is obvious, that it is the sworn duty of the Gen-
eral Assembly to place our State University upon the footing contemplated
by its wise and patriotic founders, or in other words, ' give it such dona-
tions and privileges as may be necessary to secure the objects of its institu-
tion.' Indeed, the whole subject of education is confided to the General
Assembly, with the positive injunction to such action as may be proper to
supply the wants of the State. That contracted policy which is ever stand-
ing at the door of the Treasury, with a flaming two-edged sword, is but lit-
tle better than moral treason to the Constitution, which, for more than half
a century, has been pleading for conformity on the part of those who swear
to obey. Education is the friend of the State. It will elevate the people.
It will diminish crime and the expense of executing the laws. It will raise
out the poor from the mire into which innocent poverty has sunk them, and
place them on an intellectual equality with the favored sons of fortune. It
•will dig from the mine many an unpolished gem to glitter in the crown of
cultivated society. It will stimulate enterprise, and direct its energies to
profitable objects. It will dignify labor, and open new channels for capital.
UNDER JOSEPH E. BROWN. 157
It will disinter the mineral wealth of the State, and add millions to the pro-
ductions of agriculture. It will bring into the field of science an array of
mind that will adorn our escutcheon, and dazzle the world by its achieve-
ments. In a word, Georgia must fail of her great mission without the adop-
tion of a wise and comprehensive educational policy. Away, then, with that
narrow stinginess which begrudges a dollar to such a cause, while it is often
wasteful of thousands upon objects that possess little or no merit. Go for-
ward boldly, firmly, liberally, to meet the wants of the State. Adjust your
scheme to the character of our population. Apply to the task your wisest
deliberations. Impart to it the element of self-vindication and self-support.
Make it simple in its details, and dependent, for its success and growth, upon
the voluntary support of the people."
He suggested a plan in pursuance of these views which
the General Assembly did not adopt.
CHAPTER IV.
State Geologist and Chemist.
After two years of executive experience, Governor
Brown, whose vast and extensive perception and fore-
cast seem to have extended to every possible method of
promoting the material interest of the State, and develop-
ment of her internal resources, brought this subject forci-
bly to the attention of the Legislature, and to the people
of the State. In November, 1860, he renewed the appeal
in the following strong terms. His plans in this, as in
other vast interests, were defeated or delayed by the in-
tervention of war.
" I also renew my recommendation of last year, for the appointment of a
State geologist and chemist. Probably few of our citizens living in other sec-
tions of the State have formed a correct estimate of the immense value of
the mineral region of Georgia. It is believed that the quantity of iron ore, of
the very best quality, within her borders, is sufficient to supply the demand
of all the Southern States, for that most important of all metals, for centu-
ries to come. This ore is chiefly found in a very healthy section of the State,
where there is abundant water power, of the finest character, and upon never
failing streams. The great grain growing section of the State embr.nces
these iron mines. Provisions may generally be had cheap. The coal fields
of Georgia and Tennessee are in close proximity, and a railroad communica-
tion is already established between the two. Lime, charcoal, and every other
material necessary in the manufacture of iron, may be had in great abun-
dance near the mines. I think I may truly say, that no State in the Union
possesses superior advantages for the manufacture of iron. If this interest
were fully developed, it would add millions to tlie wealth of Georgia, and would
tend greatly to increase her population. It would afford profitable employ-
ment to a large number of laboring men, retain large sums of money in the
State, now sent out annually for the purchase of iron ; and would make the
State much more powerful and independent in her present or any future
position she might be called upon to assume.
CODE OF GEORGIA. 159
" There are also very extensive and valuable slate quarries in this mineral
region. One of these, in Polk county, is already being developed and
worked to advantage by its enterprising proprietors. I commend these
valuable interests to the protecting care of the Legislature. Gold, silver,
copper, lead, manganese, and other valuable minerals and metals, have also
been found in different sections of our State. Much money has been wasted
in the search after these metals by persons lacking the necessary information
to guide their labors in the right direction. If the energies of practical men
engaged in the search were directed by scientific knowledge of the subject,
results would no doubt be produced the most interesting and valuable to the
State. To this end, the importance of a thorough geological survey of the
State, by a man of eminent ability, cannot be too highly estimated. The
appropriation for this purpose, if made, should be sufficient to secure the
services of a man of the highest character in the profession.
" To the duty of making a geological survey of the State should be added
that of making a chemical analysis of the different qualities of soil in the
different sections of the State; so as to afford the planters in each section
necessary information as to the kinds of productions to the raising of which
each kind of soil is best adapted, and the kind of manures best suited to each
different quality of soil. This, it is believed, would be of great value to the
planting interest. Certainly no class of our population has stronger claims
upon the liberality and bounty of the Legislature; and none has been lon-
ger neglected. Every appropriation necessary to the advancement and en-
couragement of agriculture should be promptly and cheerfully made by the
Lejjislature."
Code of Georgia.
■'O'
Of all the vast progress of the State under Brown there
is no step to compare in public utility with the codifica-
tion of her common law of force, the principles of equity,
the British and State statutes, and the penal code, with
all the minute regulations of all the offices and depart-
ments of the government in one methodical and concise
volume. It has reclaimed the laws to which the people
are subject from the waste and rubbish of the multitudi-
nous changes and from the vagaries and uncertainties of
disjointed lumber scattered through acts and digests, ele-
mentary books and judicial reports, and placed before the
people and the officers charged with public duties one of
the clearest and most easily to be studied and understood
160 THE CHRISTIA:^T SABBATH.
systems ever met with in judicial history. It places her
civil on a par with her penal code, which is one of the
most perfect because the most in harmony with human
frailty, and the principles of man's rights to life, liberty,
and property ever devised in any country.
The wisdom of the Governor is, however, only manifest
in the forecast that urged the necessity of the work, and
in the men selected for its execution, David Irwin, Rich-
ard H. Clark, and Thomas R. R. Cobb, to whom the code
of Georgia is a monument that ages will brighten and
burnish, instead of corroding and mouldering.
The Christian Sabbath.
The moral and religious tone of the State government
under Governor Brown is, to the Cliristian philosopher
who has witnessed the depravity in high places which has
been so prevalent in late years, one of the truly grat-
ifying features of her history. At an early period of life
he had adopted a sound code of morals for his own gov-
ernment and practices in strict accord with the code. His
face had been set and his energies directed against all
crimes of moral turpitude — everything that was dishonest.
These principles of moral and legal conduct he carried
with full vigor and energy into the public administration as
a judge, and adhered to them, without faltering, against all
public clamor or private abuse and criticism. It was not in
the nature of his moral constitution to be overawed or in-
timidated or driven from his convictions of right and wrong
by any power or inQuence whatever ; and when inducted
into the chief magistracy of the State he felt summoned by
the higher and more weighty responsibilities of the posi-
tion to exercise them in every department of the service.
The General Assembly, as early as 1859, acting under
KETEENCHMENT AND ECONOMY. 161
his advice for the protection of the public morals, and to
prevent the desecration of the Sabbath by the general
.preparation for elections on Monday, changed the general
election day to Wednesday.
At the session of 1860, the Governor took the follow-
ing bold position which, however, he could not adhere to
because the demands of a war of invasion made it wholly
impracticable : —
" The step taken at the last session for the protection of the Sabbath
against desecration is highly commendable and praiseworthy. Another
still more important remains to be taken. The railroad companies of this
State are in the habit of running their regular passenger trains on the
Sabbath day. This is generally excused on the supposed necess^ity of carry-
ing the mails on that day. I do not think the excuse is a sufficient one, nor
do I think any great public necessity requires that mail service should be
performed on the Sabbath day. The mail facilities which we enjoy on the
other days of the week are much greater than they were a few years since,
and are, in my opinion, quite sufficient for all the actual necessities of the
country. I have permitted the mail trains to run on the State road, on the
Sabbath day, in conformity to the general usage of the railroad companies
of this State, and in obedience to the requirements of a contract with the
post-office department which was made prior to my term in office, and
which continued in existence the greater portion of the time since I have
been charged with the management of the road. The practice of running
trains on the Sabbath should, in my opinion, be prohibited by law. If it is
wrong for the government of the State to permit the trains to run on tie
State road on that day, it is equally wrong to allow them to run on any
company road in the State. The General Assembly have full power to
prevent this practice in the future. I therefore recommend the enactment
of a law subjecting the superintendent of each and every railroad in this
State to indictment for misdemeanor, in the superior court of the county in
which the offence is committed ; and on conviction to fine or imprisonment,
or both, at the discretion of the court, for each and every engine, or train,
which shall, with his knowledge or consent, be permitted to run upon the
road under his control, on the Sabbath day, ' Remember the Sabbath day
to keep it holy,' is addressed alike to the legislator and to the private
citizen."
Retrenchment and Economy.
These were the ruling tenets of the civil administration
of Governor Brown, adhered to with a moral courage
11
162 MILITAKY AD:\riNISTRATION OF GOV. BEOWN.
that, in the face of the then potent opposition and often
biting criticisms by political foes, and not unfrequently
by men he displeased in his own party, rose to the height
of sublimity, and heroic firmness.
Not a leak at which unlawful drainage from the public
treasury had been tolerated, no matter how respectable
the beneficiaries, or honored the custom by age and use,
could escape his sleepless ken, or his bold efforts to stop
and suppress. And many things that tended to a waste
of the public money that -were authorized by law were
assailed, and inform demanded of the Legislature; even
to the reduction of the members and officers of that larg-e
and unwieldy body. In this direction he was hide-bound
and impervious to sympathy, charity, love, affection, or
any other method of approach to the public Treasur}^
In the opposite direction of using the public money
and credit to aid and advance all and every enterprise or
method of benefit and improvement to the State and peo-
ple, which after mature and critical examination met the
approval of his judgment, he was liberal, not to say
profuse.
Military Administration of Governor Brown.
This extends over a period of several years of peace
prior to the revolt of the Confederate States, and through
the four years of w^ar that ensued.
When he was first inaugurated, like his predecessors
he was bv the Constitution of the State invested with the
power of Commander-in-chief of the army and navy with-
out anything that bore the resemblance or name of either
to command in any emergency that might have arisen, or
that he could call into action for the protection of the
State against invasion from without or disorder within.
MILITARY ADMINISTRATION OF GOV BROWN. 163
He was also by authority of the Constitution Comman-
der-in-chief of the Militia of the State which was in a
state of non-user and general neglect, without any pre-
tended organization, officers, means of instruction in drill
and tactics, or the duties of a soldier in service, and there-
fore wholly inefficient if not useless in case any occasion
should have arisen that required the Governor to call the
citizen soldiers to protect the State, preserve public order,
or to execute the public laws. The State almost literally
had no division, brigade, regimental battalion, or com-
pany officers, and no rolls of men liable to do military
duty. Public drills and musters vaguely remembered as
the subject of ridicule, and barren of good results as to
military order and instruction, had in almost every
part of the State been wholly discontinued, and nothing
had been introduced to supply the want, leaving the
Commander-in-chief without a force to protect the State
except the civil officers and the posse comitatus, which
in many places were not reliable for even local emergen-
cies had they arisen.
The great State of Georgia was virtually dependent,
not on any power the Governor could have wielded, or
any organized force for self-protection, but was dependent
on the chances of continued peace and order without force;
or upon the prompt voluntary action of her people for her
protection and defence through the few amateur volun-
teer companies in the towns and cities.
Finding the State in this condition, and looking forward
to the possibility of things that were precipitated soon af-
ter, he began to press upon the people of the State,
through the Legislature, the importance of reforms and
changes in the militia system, and the preparation of
the citizen soldiery for the public service. Into this, as
1G4 MILITARY ADMINISTRATION OF GOV. BROWN,
many other reforms and proposed changes, he carried his
zeal and energy, guided by his usual forecast and sagacity.
The magic influence was felt throughout the State as the
early culminating dangers began to be seen in the distance ;
and the grand result was, that Georgia sent early to the
field of carnage, when war had been inaugurated, an ex-
cess in number according to white population over all the
States, north and south; and the annals of battle and
marches, and of suffering and heroic endurance, place her
troops in the front rank among her sister confederates
from the beginning to the end of the strife.
He pressed the importance of the State's military school
at Marietta, and urged its re-organization and such pub-
lic appropriations as were needed to make it a success,
and enlarge its usefulness in training the young men of
the country to arms.
He also urged the Legislature to change the militia
laws, and to put the State in a situation to protect her-
self, in the following strong terms : —
" For the purpose of giving new life and energy to our military system
which is now almost entirely neglected, tlie importance of affording to a por-
tion of the youth of our State a thorough military education cannot be too
highly appreciated. The people of many of the States of this Union are fall-
ing behind most of the civilized nations of the earth in military training.
AVithin the last twenty years the more powerful nations of Europe have
probably advanced more in military science and skill, and in all the arts of
war, than ihey had during any previous century. It is believed that no one
will doubt the correctness of this remark who has observed attentively the
late struggles between the contending powers in the Crimea and in Italy.
" There is not a more brave and patriotic people on earth than those of
the United States ; and there is probably no nation whose militia is so relia-
ble on the field of battle ; yet in this day of constant advjinccment in military
science, those who depend alone upon patriotism and valor enter the field,
even in their own defence, under great disadvantage. Should our country
be invaded by any of the great powers of the other hemisiihere, our people
would be found at the commencement of the struggle to be almost destitute
of military training. Until this deficiency could be supplied, they might be
MILITAKY ADMINISTEATION OF GOV. BROAVN. 165
unable to contend with the disciplined troops of a regular army without
great loss of life and much detriment to our national character.
" There is probably no State in the Union, certainly not one of the old
thirteen, in which military training is more neglected than in our own. We
know not how soon we may be brought to the practical test of defending
ourselves against the assaults of foreign ambition, or the more unnatural at-
tacks of those who ought to be our brethren, but whose fanaticism is prompt-
ing them to a course which is daily weakening the ties that bind us together
as one people. The father of his country has admonished us to prepare for
war in time of peace. Jf we would profit by his advice it is necessary that
we reorganize our military system. I do not hesitate to say, that the State
should offer every reasonable inducement for the organization and training
of volunteer military corps, as the best and most efficient mode of reviving
the military spirit among our people. This cannot be done until she has
made provision for arming such companies. At present, the only provision
for this purpose is the distribution of the small quota of arras which the
State receives annually from the General Government, and which is wholly
inadequate to the demand. The consequence is, that many of our volunteer
companies are without arms, while many others would be organized were it
known that they could be supplied with suitable arms.
" Frequent applications are made to this department for arms with a view
to the organization of new volunteer companies; and when those who apply
are informed that they cannot be supplied, all further attempts to organize
such companies are abandoned.
" For the purpose of encouraging the organization of volunteer corps, I
recommend that all laws now in force requiring the performance of military
service other than that performed by volunteer corps be suspended, except
in case of insurrection or invasion; and that a commutation tax be assessed
and collected from each person of twenty-one years of age, or upwards, who
is subject to do military duty in the State, and who is not a member of
an organized volunteer corps which drilled at least once a month through-
out the year preceding the collection of the tax. This tax should be
large enough to raise a sum sufficient to arm the entire volunteer force of
the State with the latest and most approved style of arms. As soon as a
sufficient sum shall be collected in this way, I recommend, as a means of
procuring the contemplated arms, that it be expended in the erection at some
suitable location in the State of a State foundry for the manufacture of
arms and other munitions of war. This would make the State much more
independent in case of emergency. The God of nature has supplied us, in
rich profusion, with all the materials necessary to the accomplishment of this
purpose.
" If ample provision were made for arming our volunteers, they would
exhibit much military pride; and the young gentlemen educated at our State
military institute would, in all probability, be elected to the command of
1G6 MILITARY ADMINISTEA.TION OF GOV. BROWN.
many of the companies, who would bring into practical operation, in training
our militia, the science and skill which they have acquired at the institute. In
case of war, we could then bring into the field a large force of well-trained
volunteers, commanded by officers of thorough military education, who
would, in almost every case, be natives of our soil. Our untrained militia,
if called into the field, with such a force and such officers at their head, would
at once become infused Avith the military spirit, and soon with much of the
military skill, of the volunteers, and would constitute with them an invinci-
ble army."
Again he says, in urging the claims of the military
institute, and his plans for its success : —
" It would not only put the institute upon a solid basis, and add largely to the
number of educated persons in our State, affording a collegiate education to
many of the poorest, though brightest and most intellectual boys in Georgia,
but would diffuse a knowledge of military science among the people of every
county in the State; which all must admit, in these perilous times, is a
desideratum second in importance to no other.
" We should not only arm our people, but we should educate them in the
use of arms, and the whole science of war. We know not how soon we may
be driven to the necessity of defending our rights and our honor, by military
force. Let us encourage the development of the rising military genius of our
State; and guide, by the lights of military science, the energies of that
patriotic valor which nerves the stout heart and strong arm of many a young
hero in our midst who is yet unknown to fame."
Following these vigorous and bold enunciations in his
general message of November, I860, he urged the erec-
tion of a foundry for the manufacture of arms and other
munitions of war, and an arsenal for the arms of the State.
The bold and dauntless spirit of the Governor, who had
the unrestricted confidence of the masses of the people,
produced a revolution in the public mind, not only of
opinion, but sentiment and feeling, upon the matter
of the public preparation for defence, and the prompt use
of the citizen soldiery of the State, not only with refer-
ence to the then possibility of a conflict with the Northern
people, but to the public defence from foreign assaults, as
well as internal disorder.
MILITARY ADMINISTRATION OF GOV. BROWN. 167
The people began to wake np from the many years of
stupor and carelessness and mactivity in military matters.
They knew with certainty that they had the blood of
brave ancestry in their veins ; that they individually were
endowed with dauntless courage that prepared them for
the imminent deadly breach, and for any feats of daring
to which the public duty or private demands of personal
honor mio;ht summon them.
But they realized an almost total want of the knowl-
edge of arms and of war, in any organized method of
their use, as well as of discipline and drill in camp and
field. Men of individual courage, but strangers to the
magic power and effect of discipline, drill, and the
harmonious movements of large bodies of men in uni-
form. Skilled in the single use of the rifle, they knew
not its potency by the regiment and corps, under
simultaneous obedience to orders.
The patriotic spirit of the Governor was caught by
the people, and reflected by their representatives in the
Legislature. And large numbers of volunteer companies
were organized in the towns and cities, and incorporated
by law, with liberal provision for arms at the expense
of the State.
In the course of his three years of administration prior
to the election of xibraham Lincoln, which was followed
by prompt action on the part of several slaveholding
States to secede from the Union, the Governor of Georgia
had rapidly advanced from the position of a young and in--
experienced mountaineer to that of a front and control-
ling rank among Southern governors and statesmen. Li
this position he combined the rare qualities that had en-
abled him to leap to it so soon : superior ability, sleep-
less energy, unequalled forecast, boldness, full confidence
1G8 MILITAEY ADMINISTRATION OF GOV. BROWN.
in the great results, patriotic devotion to his section and
State and ardent love of her people, ambition for fame
to be achieved by faithful and beneficial public service,
and the esteem and admiration of the people towards
him. Under his lead, it was natural for his State to
hold an important and controlling influence over the course
of the Southern people in the then approaching crisis
of their relations with the Federal government, and
States of the North. The communications of her Gov-
ernor, in connection with the published opinions of her
leading statesmen holding office at Washington, were
read and accepted in this State, and in every part of the
South by men not disposed to submit to Northern aggres-
sion. And they exercised a vast and rapid influence in
preparing the public mind for, and raising the public
temper to the point of, armed resistance and organized
pi'eparations for the public safety.
On the assembling of the Legislature, when the result
of the presidential contest was not reached, the Governor
transmitted the invitation of South Carolina to all the
Southern States to meet in convention to " concert meas-
ures for united action," which had been accepted by the
States of Mississippi and Alabama, and declined by Vir-
ginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Texas. He advised
against this movement because so few States would be
represented in it, and therefore but little good could
be expected to result from it.
In the same special message he used the following
pointed language : —
"If it is ascertained that the Black Republicans have triumphed over us, I
recommmend the call of a Convention of the people of the State at an early
day ; and I will cordially unite with the General Assembly in any action,
which, in their judgment, may be necessary to the protection of the rights
and the preservation of the liberties of the people of Georgia against the
MILITARY ADMINISTRATION OF GOV. BROWN. 169
further aggressions of an enemy, which, when flushed with victory, will be
insolent in the hour of triumph.
"For the purpose of putting this State in a defensive condition as fast as
possible, and preparing for an emergency which must be met sooner or later,
I recommend that the sum of one million of dollars be immediately appropri-
ated as a military fund for the ensuing year; and that prompt provision be
made for raising such portion of the money as may not be in Treasury as
fast as the public necessities may require its expenditure. 'Millions for
defence, but not a cent for tribute,' should be the future motto of the South-
ern States.
" To every demand for further concession, or compromise of our rights, we
should reply, ' The argument is exhausted,' and we now ' stand by our
arms.' "
This message was sent to them on November 7th, and
on the 16th the Governor approved a bill appropriating
$1,000,000 as a military fund for the year 1861, " for the
protection of the rights and preservation of the liberties
of the people of Georgia/' " to be expended by the
Governor in such manner as he may deem best for the
purpose of placing the State in a condition of defence,"
etc.
In this special message on federal relations prepared
pending the presidential contest, he presented the subject
of the violation of constitutional obligations by several
of the Northern States by the passage of severe laws
against reclamation of fugitive slaves, as required by the
Constitution of the United States, and provided for by Act
of Congress, and argued the matter with great ability and
at length; and recommended retaliatory legislation on the
part of this State. But the election of Mr. Lincoln trans-
pired ; and the General Assembly adopted the plan of call-
ing a State convention, and providing for military defence
as recommended in that contingency.
CHAPTER V.
Secession of Cotton-Growing States, and Organi-
zation OF THE Confederacy.
The seventh day of November, A. D., IS GO, the na-
tional election day, to which the people of the United
States, divided in interest and consequently in opinion
and feeling, looked anxiously, had dawned upon us. Its
sun had risen with bright beams of hope and promise to
the infatuated and aggressive majority section. But a
deep gloom and oppressive foreboding had settled on the
great popular heart in the South. Conscious of numeri-
cal weakness, as the North was of strength, the bitter cup
seemed about to be presented to the unwilling lips of the
Southern people ; to drink which portended political death;
to refuse and repel it was to change the strife from the
forum to the tented field of war ; from the hitherto peace-
ful and harmless play of the ballot to that of the direful
bayonet and bullet ; to replace the eloquence of the hust-
ings and legislative hall by the tread of armed legions,
and the hoarse music of artillery and muskets. Two great
peoples, long bound together b}' common ties of mutual
interest and protection, still held together by the tenure
of law and organized government, had grown into im-
mense sectional factions, and feeling themselves separate
and distinct, in interest, in aims, and destiny, were about
to argue with each other, with lead instead of logic, the
vexed problems the latter had failed to solve ; were about
to reach a final analysis in the flow of the blood of broth-
ORGANIZATION OF THE CONFEDERACY. 171
ers. The love that had long warmed the national heart,
and blended the once weak and dependent sections in a
common and apparently indissoluble tie of friendship and
union, was already in great part changed into hatred as
intense as the human heart and mind can feel without
special individual insult and injury.
The people of the South approached the polls of the
election with a seriousness and earnestness becoming the
great crisis which had been reached. Some believed that
defeat in the election was a foregone conclusion ; others
trusted that an overrulino; Providence would o'ive some di-
es o
rection to the raging storm which would be compatible
with the safety and honor of our section and people, while
many were credulous enough to believe that their respect-
ive candidates would be elected. But within a few hours
after the ballotings had ceased, the telegrams displaced
all doubts, and broke to the Southern mind the awful
truth — that Abraham Lincoln, the nominee and standard
bearer of the great Northern Republican party, was, by
a triumphant majority vote in the electoral college, the
president elect of the United States.
The pause that ensued was awful but brief; the shock
was overpowering and the effects visible upon all classes
of our people. But the chilled blood which had returned
to the heart, leaving paleness to the cheek and bringing
tremor to the nerves, soon reacted under the smart of
wounded honor, and resumed its course of circulation
with double speed. Where lately sat a shadow of dread
and gloom, now presented to every beholder a look of
defiance. Where hesitation and doubt had given a sickly
cast to every effort and action, now all was alive with
fixed purpose and resolution.
The telegrams which announced to the South the tri-
172 SECESSION OF COTTOX-GROWING STATES.
iimph of the Republicans were almost instantaneously
responded to by the announcement that the legislative
councils of the States of the &^outh, in session, were call-
ing the people together in State conventions to consider
the mode and measure of their safety. And the Execu-
tives of those States whose Legislatures were not in
session were calling them to assemble for the same pur-
pose. There was an earnestness patent upon the face of
the bulletins of that time which could not fail to impress
the victors of the ballot-box that their triumph was not
complete ; and that a great barrier to their aims was soon
to be set up in the form of a concentration on the part of
the cotton States of South Carolina, Georgia, Florida,
Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas to withdraw
from the Union and organize a separate government ;
and a strong probability that the mother of States and
statesmen, the cradle and grave of heroes, old Virginia,
would ally herself with her Southern sisters ; and that
North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas would follow ;
with a reasonable probability that Kentucky. Missouri,
and Maryland would sooner or later cast their fortunes
with us. The time to intervene between the election of
Mr. Lincoln, the 7th of November, and the 4th of March
when he was to be installed into office and invested with
the executive authority of the government, was not quite
four months. Hence the time given by the State Legis-
latures for popular deliberations was short, they being
impressed with the belief that prompt and immediate
decision was necessary in the then emergency of the
country.
We have already sketched the reasons and considera-
tions moving the people to action, in which, seemingly by
a general consent, the lead was awarded to South Caro-
OEGANIZATION OF THE CONFEDERACY. I73
Una. Her sterling purpose for many years past to resist
the encroachments of Federal authority, and the promi-
nence which her debates had given her, and the general
confidence in the sincerity of her statesmen, and the virtue
and fidelity of her people, seem to have awarded to that
State the front rank in the movement of secession. Her
ordinance of secession was adopted on the 20th of Decem-
ber, A. D., 1860 ; that of Mississippi on the 9th, and Ala-
bama and Florida on the 11th, Georgia on the 19th,
Louisiana on the 26th of January, A D., 1861, and that of
Texas on the first day of February.
The aggregate vote of the people against the candi-
dates who were in favor of immediate and separate State
action, as well as the vote of delegates in some of the
State conventions, was large. The actions of the conven-
tions were generally made unanimous, or nearly so, after a
test vote had been taken and the decision of the respective
States for secession clearly ascertained. By which course
the dissenting delegates gave in their adhesion to the will
of the majority, and avowed their purpose to adhere to
and defend the States to which they respectively be-
longed. In which example they were generally followed
by the dissenting people at home. The mode adopted by
the several seceding States to give effect to the purpose
of secession was to pass in their several conventions an
ordinance repealing the ordinance by which they became
attached to the Federal Union. To illustrate this form of
proceeding we annex here a copy of the ordinance passed
by the Georgia convention : —
174 SECESSION OF COTTOX-GROWING STATES.
AN ORDINANCE
To DISSOLVE THE UxiOX BETWEEN THE StATE OF GEORGIA AND OTHER
Statks united with her under a compact of Government en-
titled " THE Constitution of the United States of America."
We, the people of the Slate of Georgia, in convention assembled, do declare and
ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained,
That the ordinance adopted by the people of the State of Georgia in con-
vention, on the second day of January, in the year of our Lord seventeen
hundred and eighty-eight, whereby the Constitution of the United States of
America was assented to, ratified, and adopted ; and also all acts and parts
of acts of the General Assembly of this State ratifying and adopting amend-
ments of the said Constitution, are hereby repealed, rescinded, and abrogated.
We do farther declare and ordain, That the Union now subsisting between
the State of Georgia and other States, under the name of the " United
States of America," is hereby dissolved, and that the State of Georgia is in
the full possession and exercise of all those rights of sovereignty which belong
and appertain to a free and independent State.
On the motion of Judge Nesbit, the author of the ordi-
nance, it was engrossed on parchment, signed by the
delegates, and deposited in the archives of the State.
The following is a list of the convention, those voting
against the ordinance marked with a * the balance
voting for it. The vote stood 208 to 89.
Appling — Seaborn Hall, J. H. Latimer.
Bar,l:s—*W. R. Bell, S. W. Pruett.
Baker — A. H. Colquitt, C. D. Hammond.
Baldwin — *A. H. Kenan, L. H. Briscoe.
Berrien — *W. J. Mabry, J. C. Lamb.
Bibb — Washington Poe, John B. Lamar, E. A. Nisbet.
Brooks — C. S. Gaulden, Henry Briggs.
Bryan — C. C. Slater, J. P. Hines.
Bulloch — S. L. Moore, Samuel Harville.
Burke — E. A. Allen, E. B. Gresham, W. B. Jones.
Bults — D. J. Bailey, Henry Hendricks.
Camden — N. J. Patterson, F. M. Adams.
Campbell — J. M. Cantrell, T. C. Glover.
Calhoun— ^V. G. Sheffield, E. Padgett.
Carroll— B. W. Wright, B. W. Hargrave, Allen Rowe.
Cass—*W. T. \Vofford, *H. F. Price, *T. H. Tnppe.
Catoosa — *Presley Yates, J T. McConuell.
ORGANIZATION OF THE C0:NFEDERACY. 175
Charlton—*?. M. Smith, H. M. Mershon.
Chatham — F. S. Bartow. A. S. Jones, John W. Anderson.
Chattooga — *Wesley Shropshire, *L. WiUiams.
Cherokee— W. A. Teasley, E. E. Fields, John McConnell.
Clark — T. R. R. Cobb, Asbury Hull, Jefferson Jennings.
Clayton — *R. E. Morrow, James F'. Johnston.
Clay—W. H. C. Davenport, B. F. Burnett.
Clinch — Benjamin Sermons, F. G. Ramsey.
Cobb—G. D. Rice, A. A. Winn, E. IT. Lindley.
Coffee— *Rowan Pafford, *J. H. Frier.
Columbia— V^'. A. S. Collins, H. R. Casey, R. S. Neal.
Colquitt — H. C. Tucker, John G. Coleman.
Coweta — A. B. Calhoun, J. J. Pinson, W. B. Shell.
Craicford — W. C. Cleveland, Isaac Dennis.
Dade—*^. C. Hale, *R.M. I'ariss.
Dawson — *Alfrcd Webb, *R. H. Pierce.
Decatur — Richard Simms, C. J. Mnnnerlyn, B. H. Gee.
De /v«/6— Charles Murphy, *G. K. Smith.
Dooly — John S. Thomas, Elijah Butts.
D lugherty — Richard H. Clark, C. E. Mallary.
Early — R. W. Sheffield, James Buchanan.
Echols — Harris Tomlinson, J. B. Prescott.
Effingham — E. W. Solomons, A. G. Porter.
Elbert— J. C. Burch, L. H. O. Martin.
Emanuel — *A. L. Kirkland, *John Overstreet.
Fannin — *W. C. Fain, E. W. Chastain.
Fayette— M. M. Tidwell, J. L. Blalock.
Floyd — James Ward, Simpson Fouche, F. C. Shropshire.
Forsyth— na.rdy Strickland, *H. P. Bell.
Franklin — *John H. Patrick, *Samuel Knox.
Fulton — J. P. Alexander, L. J. Glenn, J. P. Logan.
Glasscock — Joshua F. Usry, Calvin Logue.
G///ner— *Joseph Pickett, *W. P. Milton.
Gordon — W. H. Dabney, *James Freeman, R. M. Young.
Greene— N. M. Crawford, R. J. Willis, T. N. Poullain.
Gwinnett — *R. D. Winn, *J. P. Simmons, *T. P. Hudson.
Habersham — R. C. Ketchum, Singleton Sisk.
Hall—*E. M. Johnson, *P. M. Byrd, *Davis Whelchel.
Hancock — *Linton Stephens, B. T. Harris, T. M. Turner.
Haralson— W. J. Head, B. R. Walton.
Harris— B. P. Hill, W. J. Hudson, H. D. Williams.
Hart— R.S. Hill, J. E. Skelton.
Heard— *R. P. AVood, *C. W. Mabry.
Henry— *F. E. Manson, *E. B. Arnold, J. H. Low.
176 SECESSION OF COTTOX-GROWIKG STATES.
Houston— J. M. Giles, D. F. Gunn, B. W. Brown.
Irwin — ^I. Henderson, *Jacob Young.
Jackson — J. J. McCuUoch, J. G. Pitman, U. R. Lyle.
Ja.'iper — *Aris Xewton, *Reiiben Jordan, Jr.
Jefferson — *H. Y. Johnson, *George Stapleton.
Johnson — *William Hust, *J. R. Smith.
Jones — James M. Gray, P. T. Pitts.
Laurens — Nathan Tucker, J. W. Yopp.
Lee — W. B. Richardson, Goods Bryan.
Liberty — W. B. Fleming, S. M. Varnadoe.
Lowndes — C. H. M. Howell, Isaiah Tilman.
Lumpkin — *Benjamin Hamilton, *William Martin.
MarJison — J. S. Gholston, A. C. Daniel.
Macon — VV. H. Robinson, J. H. Carson.
Marion — W. M. Brown, J. M. Harvey.
Mcfuiosh—J. M. Harris, G. W. M. AVilliams.
Meriwether — H. R. Harris, W. D. Martin, *Hiram Warner.
Miller— W. J. Cheshier, C. L. Whitehead.
Milton — *Jackson Graham, *J. C. Street.
iJ/tVc^e//— William T. Cox, Jesse Reed.
Monroe — R. L. Roddey, *Hiram Phinizy, Jr., J. T. Stephens.
Montgomery — *T. M. McRhae, *S. H. Latimer.
Morgan — Thomas P. SafFold, Augustus Reese.
Murray — *Anderson Farnsworth, *Euclid Waterhouse.
Muscogee — J. N. Ramsey, Henry L. Penning, A. S. Rutherford.
Newtun — W. S. Montgomery, Alexander Means, *Purmedus Reynolds.
0</lethorpe — D. D. Johnson, Samuel Glenn, *WilIis Willinghatn.
Paulding — Henry Lester, J. Y, Algood.
Pickens — *James Simmons, *W. T. Day.
Pierce — E. D. Hendry, J. W. Stevens.
Pike-li. B. Gaidener. G. M. McDowell.
Polk—W. E. West, *T. W. Dupree.
Pulaski— T. J. McGriff, C. M. Bozeman.
Putnam— *R. T. Davis, D. R. Adams.
Quitman — E. C. Ellington, L. P. Dozier.
Babun — *Samuel Beck, *H. W. Cannon.
Randolph — Marcellus Douglas, Arthur Hood.
Richmond — George W. Crawford, J. Phinizy, Sr., J. P. Garvin,
Schley— IL L. French, ^V^ A. Black.
Scriven — C. Hun.phries, J. L. Singleton.
Spaulding — W. G. Dewberry, Henry Moor.
Stewart — James A. Fort, James Hilliard, G. Y. Banks.
Sumter — W. A. Hawkins, T. ^L Fnrlow, Henry Davenport.
TaiOot—*W. R. Neal, W. B. Marshall, L. B. Smith.
ORGANIZATION OF THE CONFEDERACY. I77
Taliaferro — * Alexander H. Stephens, *S. H. Perkins.
TattKiU — *Benjamin Brewton, *Henry Strickland.
Taylor— *W. J. F. Mitchell, H. H. Long.
Telfair — *H. McLean, *James Williamson.
Terrell — *William Harrington, *D. A. Cochran.
Thomas — A. H. Hansell, S. B. Spencer, W. G. Ponder.
Towns — *Jolin Corn, *Elijah Kimsey.
Troup— B. H. Hill, W. P. Beasley, J. E. Beall.
Twiggs — John Fitzpatrick, S. L. Richardson.
Union — *J. H. Iluggins, *J. P. Welborn.
Upson — *P. W. Alexander, *T. S. Sherman.
Walker— *G. G. Gordon, *R. B. Dickerson, *T. A. Sharpe.
IFa^/on— George Spence, *Willis Kilgore, H. D. McDaniel.
Ware—^y. A. McDonald, C. W. Stiles.
Warren — M. D. Cody, X. A. Wicker.
Wayne — Henry Fort, H. A. Cannon.
Washington — E. S. Langmade, Lewis BuUard, A. C. Harris.
Webster— P. F. Brown, M. H. Bush.
White — Isaac Bowen, *E. F. Starr.
Whitfield — *J. M. Jackson, F. A. Thomas, *Dickerson Taliaferro.
Wilcox — D. A. McLeod, Smith Turner.
Wilkes — Robert Toombs, J. J. Robertson.
Wilkinson — *^. A. Carswell, *R. J. Cochran.
Worth— ^. G. Ford, Sr., T. T. Mounger.
Before the introduction of the ordinance a test vote
was had upon a simple resolution offered by Judge Nes-
bit, in these words : —
Resolved. That in the opinion of this Convention, it is the right and duty
of Georgia to secede from the present Union, and to co-operate with such of
the other States as have or shall do the same, for the purpose of forming a
Southern Confederacy upon the basis of the Constitution of the United
States.
The vote on this was the test of the question of imme-
diate secession and stood 166 to 130. Forty-one mem-
bers, after the main question had been thus decided, left
the eighty-nine, voting with the majority. They were
Messrs. Adams, Beasley, Black, Bowen, Briscoe, Brown
of Marion, Brown of Webster, BuUard, Bush, Casey,
Cody, Collins, Crawford of Green, French, Haines, Harris
12
178 SECESSION OF COTTOX-GROWING STATES.
of Hancock, Henderson, Hill of Harris, Hill of Troup,
Hudson of Harris, Johnson of Clayton, Ketchum, Lamar
of Lincoln, Langmade, Low, Long, McDaniel, Means,
Mersbon, Neal of Columbia, Saffold, Sisk, Smith of Tal-
bot, Spence, Stephens of Monroe, Teasley, Thomas of
Whitfield, Tucker of Hancock, Wicker, Williams of Har-
ris, and Yopp.
Occupation of Fort Pulaski.
The two channels of Savannah river at its mouth are
commanded by Fort Pulaski, on Cockspur, a low, marshy
island a half mile wide, situated at the head of Tybee
roads. It is a five sides work, of seven and a half feet
walls twenty-five feet above water, surrounded by a
forty-eight feet wet ditch. The fort is capable of mount-
ing one liundred and forty guns. It had only twenty
thirty-two pound guns, with limited supply of ammunition
and stores, and without a military force, being in charge
of an ordnance sergeant and his assistants.
It was manifest that the policy of the United States
was coercion by armed forces in case the secession move-
ment should be carried into effect, and the States seced-
ing disregard the authority of the general government,
and that the arms and fortifications of the government
w^ould be placed in condition to be promptly used for that
purpose. The occupation of this fort, by the State, was
regarded by Governor Brown, and all the leading men of
the State, as of the first importance in the event of an at-
tempt ■ to invade and subjugate it. It was also regarded
as scarcely less important that it should be done promptly,
w^hile there were no forces there to resist, and the takino;
of it would be unattended with violence and bloodshed,
and consequent popular exasperation North and South.
ORGANIZATION OF THE CONFEDERACY. 179
While secession was the fixed purpose, it was only first
in magnitude and importance to the preservation of
peace between the sections, if indeed such were possible
and practical, and, whatever doubt any may have then
entertained, the prudence and wisdom of this, by some
called rashness and folly, were soon after fully verified
by transpiring events.
Governor Brown, who had established headquarters
at the city of Savannah in order to act promptly in any
emergency as commander-in chief, on the second day of
January, 1861, issued to Colonel Alexander R. Lawton
commanding 1st regiment Georgia volunteers, an order
reciting, among other things : —
" In view of the fact that the government at Washington has, as we are
informed upon high authority, decided on the policy of coercing a seceding
State back into the Union, and it is believed now has a movement on foot to
reinforce Fort Sumter at Charleston, and to occupy with Federal troops the
Southern forts, inchiding Fort Pidaski in this State, which if done will give
the Federal government in any contest great advantages over the people
in this State, to the end therefore that this stronghold, which commands
also the entrance into Georgia, may not be occupied by any hostile force
until the convention of tlie State of Georgia, which is to meet on the
16th instant, has decided on the policy which Georgia will adopt in this emer-
gency, you are ordered to take possession of Fort Pulaski, as by public order
herewith, and to hold it against all persons, to be abandoned only under or-
ders from me, or under compulsion by an overpowering hostile force."
On the morning of the third of January, Colonel Law-
ton, in obedience to the Governor's order, embarked on
board a steamer at Savannah, in command of detachments
from the Chatham artillery. Captain Cleghorn ; the Sa-
vannah volunteer guards. Captain Screven ; and Ogle-
thorpe light infantry. Captain Bartow ; numbering one
hundred and twenty-five men and officers ; and at noon
of that day took formal possession of the fort in the name
of the State of Georgia, and without encountering any re-
180 SECESSION OF COTTON-GROWmG STATES.
sistance. Her flag was raised and saluted above the bat-
tlements of the fort, where it continued to float over her
troops until they were transferred to the Confederacy,
with the command of the fort; and was lowered to give
place to that of the newly formed government.
This independent and prompt action by the Executive
was sanctioned by the secession convention on the 18th
of the same month, by the following resolution : —
" That this convention highly approves the energetic and patriotic conduct
of Governor Brown in taking possession of Fort Pulaski by Georgia troops,
and requests him to hold possession until the relations of Georgia with the
Federal government be determined by this convention."
Two State Regiments Anterior to the Confederacy.
The convention after adopting the secession ordinance
with the view to provide for the defence of the State by
ordinance authorized the Governor to raise and equip a
military force not to exceed two regiments of infantry, or
infantry and artillery in such proportion as he should di-
rect. He proceeded to raise and equip one regiment of
regulars, under the command of Colonel Charles J. Wil-
liams, and a regiment of volunteers under the command
of Colonel Paul J. Semmes. He had continued, after tak-
ing possession, to hold the fort and garrison the river
approaches to Savannah, and to project and carry forward
such improvements as he was able to do by the aid of
slave-laborers tendered by planters, and by the troops
imder his command, mainly the volunteer companies of
Savannah, up to the time, in April following, when the
first regiment of regulars was distributed at Savannah,
Fort Jackson, on the river. Fort Pulaski, and on Tybee
Island. These regiments by ordinance of the Convention
had been transferred to the Confederate Governor, and
OEGANIZATION OF THE CONFEDEEACY. 181
early in the summer of 1861 were sent to the Virginia
front.
Transfer to Confederacy.
By ordinances of the convention of March 20, all the
military operations in the State having reference to or
questions between this State or any of the Confederate
States of America and powers foreign to them, and the
arms and munitions of war acquired from the United
States with the forts and arsenals, and which were then
in the said forts and arsenals, were transferred to the Con-
federate States; and that government was authorized to
occupy, use, and hold possession of all the forts, navy
yards, arsenals, custom houses, and other public sites and
their appurtenances within the limits of this State, and
lately in possession of the United States of America ; and
to repair, rebuild, and control the same at its discretion,
until said ordinance be repealed by a convention of the
people of Georgia.
Exercise of Separate State Sovereignty.
After the passage of the ordinance of secession by the
several conventions composed of delegates representing
the people of the seceding States respectively, the Execu-
tives thereof prior to the formation of a new union rep-
resented by common government acted upon the theory
that each for the time intervening was a separate and
distinct sovereign power, having withdrawn all delegated
powers and rehabilitated themselves with all the attributes
of sovereignty as if each had been a free and independent
nation. This was in full accord with the doctrine and
theory of State rights as understood by the great and
gifted leaders of Southern opinion, and consequently the
Governors of seceded States were well upheld and sus-
182 SECESSION OF COTTON-GROWING STATES.
tained by the judgment and sympathy of statesmen and by
the great volume of public virtue and intelligence.
In Georgia this was strikingly illustrated in several ex-
citing instances. The government had at the arsenal at
Augusta a company of United States troops under the
command of Capt. Arnold Elzey, with the government
flag waving over them on Georgia soil, a battery of can-
non, twenty thousand stand of muskets, and large quanti-
ties of ammunition.
Governor Brown determined that this state of affairs
was inconsistent with the sovereignty and independence
of the State, and decided upon the seizure of the arsenal,
arms, and military stores and holding them under the au-
thority of Georgia. Hon. Henry R. Jackson who had been
judge of the Savannah district in early life, commanded the
regiment of Georgia volunteers in the Mexican war at a still
earlier period, and was later a minister to the court of Aus-
tria under President Buchanan, and a life-long prominent
Democratic leader in the State, enthused by the novel
and threatening aspect of public affairs, became a mem-
ber of the Governor's staff as aid-de-camp, as did Gen-
eral William Phillips. Attended by these and a small
force the Governor in person demanded to occupy the ar-
senal, arms, and stores. Captain Elzey, a brave olficer but
not hostile in feeling to the South, at first refused under
a sense of duty to the government; but at last and with-
out violent collision yielded to the necessity which would
have forced the surrender, in the conduct of which he
was treated with all courtesy and consideration due to
himself, his men, and the United States government.
About the time of the secession of this State there
were shipments of arms being made from New York
which attracted the attention of the authorities there.
OEGANIZATIOK OF THE CONFEDERACY. 183
Some of the arms were claimed and proven to be private
property shipped for sale by merchants. But all the cir-
cumstances indicate that the authorities of this State
were preparing for the emergency which in fact soon after
arose. These arms were seized at New York under the
authority of the police of the city, held adversely and
against the authority and people of Georgia.
It was an occasion for and which summoned the prompt
action of her Governor and commander-in-chief. He
made his demand direct upon Governor Morgan of the
State of New York for the release of the arms. The man-
ner of the United States government had been most
contemptuous toward the seceding States, and Gov-
ernor Morgan at first so treated the Governor's demand
for the arms ; paying no attention and making no reply.
In the course of a few days of this contemptuous silence,
Governor Brown determined to enforce his demand by re-
prisal upon the property of citizens of New York in this
State. There were several vessels at the port of Savan-
nah, which, by order of the Governor, Colonel Henry R.
Jackson promptly seized and held, under the military au-
thority and in the custody of the State, until the restitu-
tion of the arms demanded by Governor Brown should
be made by the Governor of New York, and which were
forcibly held by the police of New York city. This led
to a correspondence between the two Governors, which,
after much cavil and some delay, resulted in conceding
the demand on the part of Governor Morgan, the release
and sending forward of the captured arms; and the final
release of the New York vessels held under the Governor's
order by Colonel Jackson in the river at Savannah.
The State convention, as a provisional measure of pub-
lic safety, as elsewhere stated, authorized the Governor
184 SECESSION OF COTTON-GROWING STATES.
to raise and equip two regiments, to act under his author-
ity as commander-in-chief. The first, known through
the war as the first regiment of Georgia regulars, was
recruited and formed bj individual enlistments, they be-
ing formed into companies and officered by his appoint-
ment. He was also authorized to purchase steamboats
for the defence of the river approaches. These were
placed under the command of Commodore Tatnall, a na-
tive of Georgia, who, having resigned his place in the
United States navy, accepted service under Georgia by
the appointment of her Governor.
These land and naval forces, weak and crude as they
were compared with those of the United States govern-
ment then being put in order and marshalled to subjugate
the South, were all under the command of Henry R. Jack-
son, whom the Governor had appointed brigadier-general,
who held the command until the organization of the Con-
federacy, and the transfer of the forces to the Confederate
States of America.
Assembling of the Provisional Congress.
The convention of the State of Alabama, having adopted
a similar ordinance to those of South Carolina, Georgia,
Mississippi, and Florida, invited the States by delegates, to
a convention to be holden at the city of Montgomery on
the 4th day of February, proximo, to which invitation
they responded by the several conventions as they se-
ceded.
In this State, they were elected by the convention in
numbers corresponding with our members of Congress;
two from the State at large, and one for each representa-
tive.
The result of which was that Robert Toombs, of the
ORGANIZATION OF THE CONFEDERACY. 185
county of Wilkes, and Howell Cobb, of the county of
Clarke, were duly elected for the State at large, and the
following named persons for the several districts affixed
to their names, to wit :
Francis S. Bartow, for the 1st Congressional District.
Martin J. Crawford, " 2d
EuGENius A. Nesbit, '• 3d
Benjamin H. Hill, " 4th
Augustus R. Wright, " 5th "
Thomas R. R. Cobb, " 6th "
Augustus H. Kenan, " 7th
Alexander H. Stephens," 8th "
a i(
a a
i(
a a
a
In the mean time, the authorities of the seceding States
took control of and held the United States arsenals, navy
yards, forts, and all places and property of the govern-
ment, within their respective limits, in opposition to the
authorities of the United States ; Forts Sumter, in South
Carolina, and Pickens, in Florida, having been timely gar-
risoned by United States troops, were still held by the
Federal government against these States, and continued
to be held in opposition to the new government when or-
ganized.
The State of South Carolina sent to Georgia, as a spe-
cial commissioner, the Honorable James L. Orr, commis-
sioned by his Excellency, Governor F. W. Pickens, who
communicated to the Georgia convention on its first meet-
ing, the 16th of January, the official action of South Car-
olina— her ordinance of secession adopted on the 20th
of December, preceding.
Ex-Governor John Gill Shorter, commissioned by Gov-
ernor A. B. Moore, represented Alabama, and communi-
cated the action of that State and her secession ordinance
186 SECESSION OF COTTON-GROWING STATES.
adopted in convention on the lltli of January, six days
prior to the assembling of our convention ; and also the
invitation of that State to meet in convention at Mont-
gomery, on the 4th of February.
The Honorable Thomas W. White, commissioned by
Governor John Q. Pettus of Mississippi, represented that
State, communicating to our convention the proceedings
of that State, which had seceded on the 9th of January.
The State of Georgia, after following the States which
had seceded, appointed Honorable D. C. Campbell a spe-
cial commissioner to the State of Delaware, with a view
to induce that State to join her slaveholding sisters.
In like manner, and for the same purpose. General John
W. A. Sanford was commissioned to Texas ; Honorable
A. K. Wright, to Maryland ; Honorable Samuel Hall was
commissioned to his native State, North Carolina ; Hon-
orable Hii;am P. Bell, to the State of Tennessee; Dr. W.
C. Daniel, to the State of Kentucky ; and Honorable W.
J. Vason, to the State of Louisiana.
The State of South Carolina, after her secession, had
made the fruitless attempt to settle by peaceful negotia-
tions all matters of probable conflict and dispute to grow
out of her separation and withdrawal from the Union, by
sending; commissioners to Washing-ton charg;ed with au-
thority to do so. This mission, notwithstanding the high
character of the gentlemen accredited, and the respect-
ful manner in which they demeaned themselves toward
the authorities of the government, failed to accomplish
any of its objects; but tended to confirm the already
well-grounded apprehension of the hostile aims of the
United States toward the States preparing to withdraw.
As we have seen, no organized convention or co-opera-
tion of States existed prior to the separate action of each.
OEGANIZATION OF THE CONFEDERACY. 187
They recognized the legal power of the United States over
the citizens so lon^r as the States remained in the Union.
But it was not by any State or any portion of the people
anticipated that the sovereignty resumed by the seceding
States would be continued to be separately exercised by
any.
All eyes turned with solicitude therefore to the conven-
tion invited by Alabama at Montgomery.
That body was promptly organized by making Ex-
Governor Howell Cobb, of Georgia, president. This gen-
tlemen had been Secretary of the Treasury under Presi-
dent Buchanan after serving his State as Governor, and
in the House of Representatives in Congress. He was a
popular Democratic leader from his youth, was a Union
man in 1850 ; but became an ardent secessionist upon
the election of Mr. Lincoln, and exerted the utmost of his
powers and large intlaence over the public mind to bring
about the separation. He had himself been often and
highly spoken of for President of the United States. His
ability, firmness and moderation, as well as his distinc-
tion and popularity, eminently fitted him for the deli-
cate and responsible position.
Election of Peesident and Vice-President.
The deliberations of this body were conducted in secret,
and whatever differences in judgment and plans may
have sprung up, they did not embarrass the people, who
regarded it as a harmonious and eminently patriotic assem-
bly ; and were prepared in mind and heart to accept and
promptly co-operate in its action.
The convention havins; assumed the title of Confeder-
ate States of America, proceeded to elect Hon. Jefferson
Davis of the State of Mississippi provisional President,
188 SECESSION OF COTTON-GKOWIXG STATES.
and Hon. Alexander H. Stephens provisional Vice-Presi-
dent of the Confederate States.
These appointments were received and cordially ap-
proved by all classes of people. There were other able
and competent leaders who would no doubt have ac-
cepted the position of president, and whose respective
friends and admirers would have been more gratified for
the time being to see honored than Mr. Davis ; but to
him no objection was publicly urged, if any existed.
His private life and character had ever been without
reproach. He had given proof of his gallantry and ability
in the field during the war between his country and the
republic of Mexico. He had been long a member of
Congress from Mississippi, discharged with ability and to
the great satisfaction of the United States the duties of
secretary of war during the administration of President
Pierce ; and had been an eminent leader of the Southern
people upon the subject of State rights, and Southern
rights, and the issues that had now divided the Union.
He united in himself in the opinion of his people in a
rare degree the qualities of unsullied honor, devotion to
the South, moral and physical courage, ability as a states-
man and no ordinary military talents, with a firmness
and integrity of purpose and strength of will seldom to
be found, as well as energy and perseverance equal to
the crisis. The opinions of many were much modified
and changed as to some of the points above mentioned
during the four years of severe trial that ensued ; but
in nothing that related to his honor, courage, firmness,
patriotism, or devotion to the South and her people.
But at the time of the publication of his appointment the
effect was the very best upon the people generally, who
believed that, all things considered, he was the best man
ORGANIZATION OF THE CONFEDEEACY. 189
in the confederacy then formed for its presidency. Those
who had favored the claims of other men soon settled
down in the patriotic and satisfactory conviction that the
convention had acted wisely in selecting him.
The appointment of Mr. Stephens vice-president, and
his acceptance of the second place were equally gratifying
to all the friends of the revolution. His clear head and
honest heart, his great experience in public life, forecast,
and practical wisdom, and unsullied private life and char-
acter had given him large influence over statesmen North
and South, and upon the people of the South. He had
been long the object of pride in his State, and of a warmth
of admiration rarely felt for any public political leader.
Up to the secession of Georgia he had been bitterly and
firmly opposed to the movement,. was a delegate from
his county in the secession convention, where he spoke
and voted against it, but, impelled by his loyalty to his
State and his theory of State rights and sovereignty, so
soon as she acted he ceased his opposition and joined the
movement. His appointment by the Congress was com-
mended, not only commended upon the ground that the
public men and people esteemed him eminently fitted, but
also upon the ground that it afforded additional proof of
the good faith of the secession party and promoted the
best of feelings and cordial relations between them and
those who had opposed secession. All the people had
reason to realize that the conflicts between them were
ended, and the antagonisms engendered by them buried
with the past, and were replaced by fraternity, and united
and harmonious and earnest counsels looking to the suc-
cess of the cause and the good of the people.
The convention proceeded with great dispatch to frame
a provisional constitution, and to organize the depart-
190 SECESSION OF COTTON"-GEOWING STATES.
merits of government. On the 11th day of March the
provisional Congress, composed of the delegates, assembled
as a convention, adopted a permanent Constitution,* and
proposed the same for ratification to the several State
, conventions represented in that Congress, which was by
each promptly ratified and thus became the organic law
of the Confederate States of America.
Constitutional Changes.
The new government is founded upon the model of
the old, being identical in the leading characteristics — the
executive, legislative and judicial branches.
The general enumeration of delegated and reserved
powers, in the main, are copied from the old constitution
with only a few modifications and express restrictions.
The preamble contains the significant clause not in the
old constitution : " each State acting in its sovereign and
independent character; " and also the clause : " invoking
the fixvor and guidance of Almighty God." The Confed-
erate Constitution provides that no person of foreign birth,
not a citizen of the Confederate States, shall vote for any
officer. State, or Federal; and provides that army officers
of the general government, residing and acting solely
within any State, may be impeached by the Legislature
thereof. That no bounties shall be granted from the pub-
lic treasury, nor duties laid upon importations from for-
eign countries to foster any branch of industry; and that
duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout
*The provisional Constitution being only temporary, and the permjinent Constitution
having been overthrown by the armed power of the United States, the copies of those in-
struments inserted in this chapter written in 1861 are here omitted, retaining the notes
of ditference between the Constitution of the United States and that of the Confederate
States.
ORGANIZATIOX OF THE CONFEDERACY. 191
the Confederate States ; denies to Congress the power to
appropriate money for any internal improvement intended
to facilitate commerce, except for furnishing lights, bea-
cons, and buoys, and other aids to navigation upon the
coast ; and the improvement of harbors, and the removal
of obstructions in river navigation ; in all which cases, it
is provided that the duties shall be laid on the navigation
facilitated thereby.
It requires that after a given day the post-office depart-
ment shall be self-sustaining, and prohibits the passage of
any bankrupt law to discharge any debts contracted be-
fore the passage thereof; or any law impairing the right
of property in negro slaves.
It requires that all bills appropriating money shall spec-
ify in Federal currency the amount of each appropriation,
and the purposes for which it is made ; and prohibits Con-
gress from granting extra compensation to any public con-
tractor or agent after the contract is made or the service
rendered. It specifies the powers and duties of Congress
in reference to the territories of the Confederate States ;
and particularly recognizes and establishes the institution
of slavery therein. It changes the presidential term from
four to six years, making the President ineligible for a sec-
ond term, and gives Congress the power to grant to the
heads of executive departments the privilege to sit in
either House of Congress, and discuss questions appertain-
ing to their respective departments. It provides that
Congress, upon the demand of any three States concur-
ring in the proposal of any amendment, shall summon a
convention of all the States, to take into consideration the
amendments to the constitution thus proposed.
It restricts the limitation in the old constitution that
'• no tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from
192 SECESSION OF COTTON-GROWING STATES.
any State," and provides, that it may be done by a vote
of two-thirds of both houses.
It prohibits the importation of negroes of the African
race except from the slaveholding States or territories of
the United States, and gives Congress power to prohibit it
from any State or territory not of the Confederate States.
It omits the prohibitory clause, " nor shall vessels
bound to or from one State be obliged to enter, clear, or
pay duties in another." Omits the prohibition to the
States to " emit bills of credit." It restricts the prohibi-
tion to the States without the consent of Congress to lay
any duty on tonnage, so as to except '' sea-going vessels, for
the improvement of its rivers and harbors, navigated by
aid vessels," but provides that such duties shall not con-
flict with any treaties of the Confederate States with for-
eign nations ; and requires that any surplus revenue thus
derived, after making such improvements, be paid into
the common treasury. It provides also that where any
river divides or flows through two or more States they
may enter into compact with each other to improve the
navigation thereof
It requires a vote of two-thirds of Congress to appro-
priate money, and the yeas and nays recorded, unless the
appropriation is asked by the head of a department and
submitted tp Congress by the President ; or for the pur-
pose of paying its own expenses and contingencies ; or
for the payment of claims against the Confederate States,
the justice of which shall have been judicially declared by
a tribunal for the investiojation of claims ao;ainst the
government, which tribunal it is made the duty of Con-
gress to establish.*
*Such are the leading features which distinguish the Confederate States' Constitution
from that of the United States, at the time of the adoption of the former. The author's
ORGANIZATION OF THE CONFEDERACY. 193
But the author's main objection to this, as to the old
constitution, was that it did not provide absolutely for the
enforcement of the doctrine of perfectly equal rights, im-
munities, exactions, and burdens to all States, sections,
classes of people, and of occupations and callings, so far
as they are affected by the common gov.ernment ; and
that odious and oppressive discriminations may be made
by statute law without a violation of the constitution.
The conclusion of the elaborate chapter was in these
words : —
" When we shall have waded through years as we already have through
months of sore conflict, privation, slaughter, and waste — if a favoring Provi-
dence shall see fit to so afflict us — when we shall have gained our independ-
ence of the United States, with whose powerful and increasing armies our
gallant kindred now contend, then we shall have gained an extension merely
of the old charter of liberty. We shall then have, as a boon to ourselves and
to bequeath to our children, the right to cavil and debate as to what is
meant by the grants and restrictions iu the Confederate constitution,
until the deep wells of passion are stirred up, sectional or internal jealousies
form into factions and parties based upon opposing interests. Then the
descendants of the heroes of Bethel, Manassas, and Oak Hill will be called
on to again solve in blood the still unsettled problem of human rights and
wrongs."
voluminous criticism upon the then apparent want of completeness in constitutional re-
form, and the insufficiency of this organic law to prevent another revolution in case of the
success of this, are here omitted, as the work of orgnnic change in favor of the rights of
the State and people has been effectually arrested by arms. He then thought, and at-
tempted to show, that the powers and prerogatives of the Executive, and of Congress, as
well as the reserved rights and powers, the duties and obligations of the States, should have
been clearly, specifically and unmistakably defined, and the remedy, if any was intended,
indicated for wrongs and insupportable violations of the common compact. They were
forniing another confederacy of co-equal and sovereign Slates. The mooted questions of
the old Union related mainly to these subjects, and led to separation and war between the
States. It seems remarkable that there was a total omission to provide any remedy for ag-
gressions, assumptions, and intolerable grievances ; not even the question of secession is
referred to in the new organic law, upon the riglit or wrong of which, as a remedy, depende<!
the right or wrong of the collision that was to ensue, in a constitutional view.
13
194 SECESSION OF COTTOX-GROWING STATES.
Confederate Constitution. — How Adopted.
The Confederate constitution never came before tlie
people for ratification. The delegates to the State con-
ventions were elected by the people to decide upon the
issue whether the States calling them would submit to
the election ofi Abraham Lincoln as President of the United
States and the placing in power a sectional party and ad-
ministration hostile to the institution of slavery and upon
the mode and measure of redress. After passing seces-
sion ordinances and separating the respective States from
the Union, as understood by us, they proceeded to ap-
point delegates to a convention of seceded States upon
the invitation of Alabama. In manj^ instances persons of
their own body were appointed. In Georgia all the dele-
gates to Congress, except Howell Cobb, Martin J. Craw-
ford, and Augustus R. Wright, were delegates from their
respective counties in the State convention.
The convention of States or provisional Congress framed
the Confederate Constitution ; referred it back to the same
State Conventions by which alone it was ratified. The
people did not appoint the members of the provisional
Congress, and never by their vote upon it ratified the
Constitution enacted by it.
But while there was no formal specific ratification ex-
cept by the Secession convention, the hearts of the peo-
ple generally were in full sympathy and accord with the
movement, and approved the apparent haste under the
pressing emergencies with w^iich it was effected. The
convention desired no popular discussion on the form and
details of a constitution in the face of a vital struggle for
national life itself. And the people generally having
full confidence in the wisdom and patriotism of the pro-
visional Congress did not desire to have it discussed. It
ORGANIZATION OF THE CONFEDERACY. 195
had met on the 4th of February and made and organized
a provisional government; and by the 11th day of March
framed and submitted to the State conventions for ratifi-
cation the form of a permanent Constitution.
The Congress proceeded to organize a post office de-
partment, war department, the attorney-general's or de-
partment of justice, treasury department, and department
of state, and to adopt such enactments as the situation of
affairs seemed to require in order to carry on the machin-
ery of the new government, and for the public defence in
case war should result from the separation.
Efforts to Negotiate.
It was the settled purpose of the new government, and
a large and overwhelming majority of the people, now
that the States had withdrawn and formed a new union,
to maintain it even at the hazard of war between the se-
ceded States and the United States. But it was intensely
desired by many of the people that it should be evaded, and
the separation result in the establishment of peace and
amity between the two governments. To this end a com-
mission was sent to Washington with powers and instruc-
tions to adjust and settle all conflicting claims and com-
plicated affairs between the United States and the Confed-
erate States in a manner satisfactory to both, provided the
former would negotiate upon the basis of the independ-
ence of the latter. This commission necessarily failed,
as that government was fully determined to treat the
seceding people as rebel subjects, and in no sense whatever
to recognize any legal status or any claim or demand of
the seceding States as a separate and independent govern-
ment. Alleged perfidy and duplicity and contemptuous
treatment by the officials at Washington toward the com-
196 SECESSION OF COTTON-GROWING STATES.
missioners afforded grounds for severe criticism and
tended further to add to the provocations, and inflame the
passions of the Southern people.
Efforts for Recognition.
The Confederate States also sent a commission to Eu-
rope headed by William L. Yancey of Alabama, with a view
to procure the recognition by England and France of the
independence of the Confederate States.
It had been often urged by speakers and writers to the
people of the South, when favoring secession, and in con-
troverting the probability that war would result, that the
United States were too deeply interested in our products
to go to war with us ; and. that England and France be-
ing manufacturing countries, and largely interested in the
growth of raw fabrics in the Southern States, would be by
sympathy based on interest and jealousy toward the
United States, the only remaining part of this country
that offered them competition, would become our friends
and allies, and upon the formation of a Southern govern-
ment would promptly recognize us ; and thus tend to
prevent war. Our people, as well as our government
were sadly disappointed, when by the entire failure of
those governments to move on that line, they suddenly
realized their fixed purpose of neutrality in form, but
quasi hostility in fact and effect; and that from these pow-
erful and controlling European nations all the recognition
we could get, until our independence should be achieved,
was that of " belligerents ;" for whatever of sympathy
may have been felt by English and French people toward
the Confederate States, it became more and more appar-
ent that we had no well grounded hope of any from those
governments..
i
ORGANIZATION OF THE CONFEDERACY. 197
Efforts at Compromise. — President Buchaxan. — Ac-
tion OF THE Border States.
The work of separation and reorganization having been
completed to the satisfaction of the friends of the revolu-
tion, there seemed to be but one check to the general joy
and happiness of the people ; one fearful barrier to the
immediate national prosperity. Our house was easily set
in order ; our affairs among ourselves were adjusted with-
out an apparent element of strife or discord ; for, as to all-
the elements, moral, religious, social and material, all that
exert any control in politics and government, we were
then a united, earnest, and enthusiastic people. The
great check was in the terrible truth, that our relations
with the government of the United States with which
the Southern States had been so long bound by fraternal,
social, material, and constitutional ties were not settled.
The great problem was still to be solved — whether our de-
mand to depart in peace, live separate, and be an inde-
pendent nation, was to be allowed without force by that
government. The public awaited the determination of
the issue with deep anxiety, and with mixed emotions of
hope, dread, and fear. Maryland, Delaware, Virginia,
North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Mis-
souri, all slaveholding Southern States, had not seceded.
Strong hopes seemed to be entertained by the leading
statesmen of most of those States that terms of adjust-
ment and reconstruction might still be agreed on ; and
that by wise and prudent councils the final dismember-
ment of the Union might be prevented.
These hopes, however, were not based on any overtures,
propositions, or manifestation of amiable temper or peace-
ful designs by the Republican party, in or out of Congress,
198 SECESSION OF COTTON-GROWING STATES.
or from the executive department of the government.
Their leaders seemed defiant ; their political press con-
temptuous in tone ; while the members in Congress
j)romptly voted down every proposal that sprang from
Southern men seeking to conciliate and reunite the sec-
tions.
The seats of the members from the seceding States had
all been vacated upon the passage of the ordinance of se-
cession by the respective States. The members from the
border slave States not seceded, were left to contend
against the overwhelming numbers of the Republicans and
War Democrats in Cono-ress.
A peace-Congress composed of delegates from those
border States was held, and presided over by the vener-
able Ex-President John Tyler of Virginia, to which many
looked with anxious hope, but was unavailing. Hon.
John C. Breckenridge, senator from Kentucky, the hon-
ored leader of the southern wing of the old Union Democ-
racy, remained in his seat, and brought to bear his
powerful logic and eloquence to no purpose but to satisfy
himself and the country that there was but one alterna-
tive left the South — submission to the new administra-
tion, and the rule of the sectional Eepublican party, and
the influence and logical sequences of its teachings and
doctrines on the institution of slavery and the peoj^le
interested in and identified with it, or prompt prepara-
tions to resist its aggressive and coercive power. Proposi-
tions for compromise conciliation were submitted by the
venerable and sage leader of the old southern Whigs,
Hon. John C. Crittenden of Kentucky. They too were
spurned by the unyielding Republicans.
President Buchanan had been defeated in his efforts to
preserve the constitution of his country and prolong its
ORGANIZATION OF THE CONFEDERACY. 199
unity and peace. His policy was condemned by the
omnipotent voice of the people of his own section of the
Union. His administration, like his long and eventful
public life, was drawing to a close. He had lost prestige
to a large extent, and fallen between the contending
hosts, not looked to as a leader of the North, not relied
on as a friend of the South, or dreaded as among her
strongest foes. He provoked the ire of the Northern peo-
ple by an alleged inclination to favor, or to be too lenient
towards the South. He provoked the animadversions of
Southern people, by what appeared to be a vacillating
policy and course of conduct. A patriot desiring to
prevent dissolution and strife, and to see a peaceful ter-
mination of the pending troubles, but without power to
control the storm which he would not aggravate by what
appeared would be a futile attempt at prompt suppression.
His long and able services to his country and govern-
ment in Congress, in the cabinet, as minister abroad and
as President of the United States, begun in the brighter
and purer days of the republic, characterized by unfalter-
ing devotion to what he regarded the public good,
through sunshine and shade, amid the storms of public
passion, and in the calm and serene days of the peaceful
past, was now about to terminate with the violent sever-
ance of the Federal Union he had so long loved and
cherished.
Secession and Accession of Boeder States.
All efforts to reconcile the alienated sections having
failed, and the people of the border slaveholding States
having left to them the choice of their own course, to
remain in the Union and abide the consequences to flow
to themselves from a government regarded as to a large
200 SECESSION OF COTTON-GROWING STATES.
extent hostile to them, and their institutions, and to be
compelled as citizens subject to that government to aid
in subjugating those who had withdrawn, and with whom
they had common cause of complaint, — or to unite their
fortunes and destiny with them, — did not long hesitate.
As South Carolina had led the cotton-growing States,
and seemed by common consent to bear the palm for the
unanimity and promptness of her people, Virginia now
seemed to be looked to with deep interest as likely to
affect the action and course of the border States. Many
of the people of the cotton States had favored and voted
for secession as a remedy under the hope and belief that
it would be peaceful. But Virginia adopted it, after its
peaceful features had vanished ; and w'hen her people
knew that grim-visaged war was at her gates as an alter-
native, threatened and morally certain, to submission ;
and with a strong probability that her own bosom would
be the seat of the deadly and wasteful conflict.
Her ordinance of secession was adopted on the 17th of
April. Her subliuie example was followed by Arkansas
on the 6th of May ; by North Carolina on the 20th, and
by Tennessee on the 8th of June.
Maryland cast her lot on the side of the Union, not-
withstanding many of her noblest people were true to
the South ; and many of her brave sons voluntarily as-
sumed the labor and dan^-er of defendino; her cause.
The Executive of Missouri declared that State seceded
on the 8th of August. But the people were opposed to
the movement, and went with the Union. Still a few of
the noble and brave joined our standard.
In Kentucky, a provisional southern government was
organized after it was known that the State authorities
would not act, and when it was strongly probable that the
ORGANIZATION" OF THE CONFEDERACY. 201
majority of her people favored the old Union. Both
Kentucky and Missouri, however, sent members who
acted as such in the Confederate Congress, and troops to
our armies.*
*If those States, witli their vast resources of men and stock, of meat and bread, had gone
promptly witli the other border States, and joined heartily in it, as did Virginia, Tennessee,
and Arkansas, there can be no ground to doubt that the achievement of Confederate inde-
pendence would have been the result of a short war between the North and South. And
even if she had had Kentucky without Missouri the cause would not have been lost.
CHAPTER VI.
Preparations for War. — Comparative Strength and
Resources. — Opening of Hostilities. — First
Year's Operations in the Field. — Situation of
THE People.
After the secession of the cotton States and the organ-
ization of the Confederacy, in most of those States the
miHtary spirit, in anticipation of warhke movements, be-
gan to be kindled. Volunteer companies in the towns
and cities began to inure themselves to drill and discipline,
and new ones to form in every direction. It was not to
cast lots upon whom the burden should fall of defending
the South, but the questions were, who can soonest get
ready, organize, and equip for the post of danger ? ' Who
can get arms, and who shall be the favorites of the gov-
ernment in being allowed the honor of going first to the
w^ar — of repelling by force the invading foe ?
The government of the United States had garrisoned
Fort Sumter, which commanded the approach of the city
of Charleston ; and Fort Pickens, which commanded the
approach to the navy yard at Pensacola. The State of
South Carolina, while indignant at the action of the gov-
ernment in covering her designs, and in trifling with that
State, and in garrisoning Fort Sumter contrary to repre-
sentations held out to her commissioners at Washington;
and while many of her people desired and urged a differ-
ent course, very wisely forbore to make any assault upon
the fort or attempt to regain it by force, but contented
FIRST YEAR IN THE FIELD. 203
herself with preparations to prevent the reinforcement
of the garrison. Such was the condition of affairs when
the conduct of them by the State was relinquished to
Confederate authority. Major Anderson of the United
States army was in command of the garrison in the fort,
while its reduction was confided to the command of Brio;-
adier-General G. T. Beauregard of the Confederate States
provisional army, then composed of such State military
organizations as had been turned over to the Confederacy,
and of such volunteer companies as had been tendered to
and accepted by the Confederacy. The South Carolinians
guarded the approach of United States vessels which might
be intended to provision or reinforce the fort while the
works projected for the reduction of it were being con-
structed. Major Anderson contented himself to witness
these hostile demonstrations without attempting to disturb '
them although they were under the range of his guns.
The artillery fire from one of the Confederate batteries,
erected to command the approach to the fort, upon a
United States vessel approaching the fort with supplies
in violation of the faith of the United States government
not to attempt to provision or reinforce it but under
orders from her military authorities, may be denominated
the first shot of the revolution. This was followed within
a few days by the opening of General Beauregard's bat-
teries upon the fort, which resulted in its reduction. All
efforts that peaceful inclination or honor required having
been exhausted, the single alternative was left of reducing
the fort, or suffering it to remain in the hands of the
United States forces in a threatening posture towards
Charleston.
The question as to who begun hostilities depends upon
the right of secession. If secession was an act of rebellion
204 OPENING OF HOSTILITIES.
the attempt to occupy the fort and expel the forces of
the United States was an attack upon that government
and clearly an act of war. If secession was the exercise
of a right to which the States were entitled, then Fort
Sumter was within the jurisdiction and limits of a govern-
ment foreign to that of the United States, and the occu-
pation, garrisoning, and holding it in a threatening post-
ure, and the attempt to provision and reinforce it
against the consent of the new government were all acts
of war on the part of the United States; and the reduc-
tion by force, and the occupation of the fort, and the ex-
pulsion of the troops of the United States on the part of
the Confederate States, were acts of self-defence.
The right of secession was a foregone conclusion w-ith us
and we could not hesitate as to the proper course to pur-
sue in that emergency. That right was denied by the
government of the United States. The authorities of that
government, therefore, held that the firing upon the vessel
in their service and upon the fort in the occupancy of
their troops were acts of war. This difference of opinion
and different line of action in consequence of it brought
the two nations to the conflict of arms. But there was
underlying this ostensible issue of forces, and antecedent
to it. a settled purpose on the part of the United States
government to resort to coercion. If she had been peace-
fully inclined, there can be no possible doubt that she
could without dishonor, and would without hesitation,
have given the matter a direction which would have met
the ardent wishes of the South by avoiding the resort to
arms. Our only mode of avoiding the issue of battle w^as
to submit unconditionally, and of this our people and
government were fully sensible.
The works projected for the reduction of Fort Sumter
FIRST YEAE IN THE FIELD. 205
as well as the bombardment are said to have been con-
ducted with consummate skill, and the latter was attended
Avith scarcely any serious casualties upon either side.
The great God of battles seemed unwilling, even after the
peace of a continent was broken in the thunders of battle,
that the red tide of war should be opened upon such a
country.
The success of General Beauregard's operations against
Sumter raised him to the full measure of public confi-
dence, and the acts of hostilities had the effect to raise
the blood of both sections to fever heat. All hope
of avoiding Avar was now blighted, and the purpose of
cultivating peaceful measures, abandoned. The de-
mand of the South to be let alone, she had lawfully de-
termined to enforce if possible, regardless of the cost in re-
sources, treasure, and blood. Invasion and conquest under
the guise of suppressing the rebellion and restoring the
Union eng-rossed the o-reat Northern mind, and stirred
the passions of that people to the utmost capacity. Their
public journals Avere the daily chronicles of busy prep-
arations for Avar. The gates of Janus closed amid the pro-
found peace of the United States for thirteen years Avere
now fully open. The storm of popular passion had now
reached the point of madness, and devoted the people of
both sections to destruction, and the " red right hand " of
Omnipotence Avas upraised to smite them.
Comparative Population.
By the census report of the United States for the year
1860, the total population Avas 31,646,869; that of the
non-slaveholding States Avas 18,950,759 ; that of the non-
slaveholding territories, 262,701 ; Avhite and black popula-
tion of the slaveholding States, 12,433,409. This, however,
206 OPENING OF HOSTILITIES,
is not the estimate of peoples as they stand opposed in this
war. The population of the eleven States of Virginia,
North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Ala-
bama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, and
Tennessee, which are the States properly embraced in
the Confederacy, are whites 5,671,723 ; slaves 3,570,987;
to which add a liberal estimate of the people of Missouri,
Kentucky, and Maryland, who co-operated with us, say
one-third of the people of Missouri and Kentucky, and
one-fifth of those of Maryland, added to the white popula-
lation South 797,793 whites, and 130,776 slaves, making
6,468,516 whites, and 3,701,763 slaves and a total popu-
lation in the South in that war of 10,170,279. Add to
the northern population the remainder of the people of
Missouri, Kentucky, and Maryland not included on the
southern side by our estimate, 1,967,766, makes the grand
total for the North 21,181,226.
In addition to the fact that more than one-third of the
10,170,279 on the side of the South were slaves, liable to be
abducted or corrupted and rendered useless, and an element
of weakness upon the near approach of the enemy, the fore-
going is a more than liberal estimate in favor of the South
when it is remembered that Western Virg-inia and a ma-
jority of the people of East Tennessee were opposed to us,
and co-operated with the other side whenever opportunity
offered, and there were numerous persons along the border
in other States thus disaffected. When it is considered that
President Davis adopted the policy of defensive war and
declined generally to invade the enemj^, it is apjDarent at
once that the efficient number for the South was decreased
at every advance of the enemy. For those who were thus
cut off from us and left within the line of the enemy's occu-
pation were powerless to aid us, even if they did not be-
FIRST YEAR IN THE FIELD. 207
come disaffected by the presence of the enemy among
them, and their resources in provisions were not only thus
cut off from us but were converted to the use of the
Federal army.
It is not practicable to present a precise estimate of the
strength of the two sections in people. The North in-
creased rapidly by immigrants, and when we consider the
extent of the Union sections of the South, and the fact
that so large an element were slaves and unavailable for
bearing arms, it was thought fair to estimate three for
one in favor of the United States against the Confederate
States.
The superficial area of the Confederate States was
741,990 square miles ; that of the United States, includ-
ing the four slave States of Delaware, Maryland, Ken-
tucky and Missouri, was 1,045,820 square miles; and that
of the territories of the United States, 1,580,000 square
miles.
Division of Territory.
The dividing line between the two confederacies, if
fixed on the northern boundary of the eleven States
mentioned, was upwards of two thousand miles in length.
By far the greater portion is a dry line ; and upon the
balance the Red, the Mississippi, the Ohio, and the Poto-
mac rivers mark the boundary. There were no moun-
tains forming a line of boundary, except a part of that
between Virginia and Kentucky. The line of sea-coast to
be defended was still greater in length than the bound-
ary line by land, reaching from the mouth of the Rio
Grande to that of the Potomac, from which any one of
the eleven States could be directly invaded except Ar-
kansas and Tennessee. The States of Virginia, North
Carolina, Texas and Tennessee furnished a large surplus
208 OPENING OF HOSTILITIES.
of beef and bacon, corn and wheat, while a considerable
portion of these essentials were drawn from other States.
The resources of the South in sugar, syrup, and rice
seemed ample to meet the wants of the people and the
army. The large area of the cotton crops occupying
the most valuable lands of the cotton States rendered the
supply of grain and meat, in those States, somewhat
sparse. But the planters wisely determined to curtail
the cotton, and largely increase the crops of grain, and
there was but little ground to fear that the confederacy
would be self-sustaining in all the articles needed to feed
the people and the army for an indefinite period.
Comparative Resources and Valor.
It was apparent, however, that the resources of the
United States were vastly superior to ours in cattle, hogs,
corn and wheat, from the middle and western States.
The facilities for internal transportation of troops and
army stores by railroads and rivers, seemed to be abun-
dant in both sections. The North also possessed great
advantages over the South in the supply of mules and
horses for wagons, artillery, and cavalry. The supply in
the South was ample for immediate use, and for some
time to come ; but as the war became long protracted,
this became an embarrassing subject to us. For war is
as destructive to horses and mules as to men, and we had
comparatively few facilities in the South for raising these
animals.
Great reliance was placed in the South upon the supe-
rior courage and bravery of our troops over those of the
North. While there was no apparent reason to doubt the
prowess of the South, or the skill of her rising military
chieftains, but great reason to be proud of both, there
FIRST YEAR IN THE FIELD. 209
did not seem to be good grounds to doubt the soldierly
qualities of the northern men. The vigorous, physical
and mental constitutions of the western men, in connec-
tion with their habits and mode of life, did not seem to
warrant the conclusion that they would prove deficient
in courage, endurance, or skill. Drill, exposure to hard-
ships and privations, and familiarity with danger, did
much to improve the prowess of the troops from the
middle and eastern States. The large element of Irish
composition in the federal army, together with the pres-
ence of the troops of the regular army who had seen
much service, were things which an impartial and con-
siderate spectator could not overlook in order to reach
the conclusion that federal troops in that war would be
formidable in battle. There were, however, apparent,
well-settled facts which warranted the conclusion that the
Confederates would be a match for the Federals, man for
man. The fiery impetuosity of their temper, the fact
that personal physical courage in private life was esteemed
in the South a higher virtue than it was in the North, the-
familiarity of all our people with the use of firearms, and
their consequent skill as marksmen, and above all, the-
consideration that they were fighting in defence of their
country, homes, firesides and families, against an invad-
ing army — stimulants which must be wanting to the
northern troops — seemed to warrant this conclusion.
They were vastly our superiors in mechanical skill and
in their resources and preparations for the manufacture
of machinery, clothing, shoes, blankets, tents, arms, am-
munition, wagons, rolling stock for railroads, boats for
river service, transports, gun-boats, and all manner of
ships of war, and also in navigation. They had a navy,
we had none. They had an army which they retained,
14
210 OPENING OF HOSTILITIES.
except that most of the army officers of southern birth
quitted their service to join ours, while we had no army
and but comparatively few arms or ordnance stores.
They had a government fully organized and a full repre-
sentation at foreign courts ; we had to supply the former,
but were wanting in the latter because foreign govern-
ments did not recognize our nationality. They had a
national credit which we had to suppty by a judicious use
of the resources at our command. They had the open
markets of the world in which to buy and sell, and enlist
hireling troops to take the place of their citizen soldiers,
while we were blockaded and our ports of entr}^ sealed
up except to such ships as were fortunate enough to carry
on a trade through the blockading squadron of the enemy.
Such w^ere some of the difficulties that seemed to en-
viron the Confederate States and stand between us and
the independence of our country. But we had a deter-
mined will to be free. We had the peace and security of
our homes, the safety of our women and children, the
weal of the present and future generations at stake ; we
had truth, justice, honor, and humbly trusted that we had
the just God of battles on our side and would ultimatel}^
prevail.
For the causes and with the auspices we have endeav-
ored faithfully to set forth, the government of the Con-
federate States, sustained by their people, boldly ventured
upon the expedient of Avar for that independence.
The occupation of Forts Pickens and Sumter by the
forces of the United Sta.tes, as we have seen, was cause
of irritation to the people of the Confederacy. The gov-
ernment took early steps to expel them. While the com-
mand of the forces and works for the reduction of Fort
Sumter was confided, as we have seen, to General Beau-
FIRST YEAR IN THE FIELD. 211
regard, those at Pensacola for the purpose of reducing
Fort Pickens were confided to the command of Gen.
Braxton Bragg. The country waited for several weeks
in vain to see the success at Fort Sumter repeated at
Fort Pickens ; but after weeks of delay the people ascer-
tained, what was probably much sooner known to the
commanding general, that the enterprise was impracti-
cable. .
In the mean time the question absorbed the attention
of the people, and doubtless of the government, as to
what mode of attack the Federals would employ ; whether
they would invade us from the Atlantic and Gulf coast,
or organize land forces and invade the border States.
That the military councils of the enemy were guided
by able and experienced men who had seen much service
could not be doubted ; while the capacity of those in our
service to command large forces with success was a prob-
lem which time and trial alone could solve. It was ex-
pected of Lieutenant-General Winfield Scott, who was at
the head of the United States army, that he would be
faithful to his government while in its service ; but by
many it was doubted whether he would consent to con-
tinue in that service if it should involve the invasion of Vir-
ginia, his native State ; and which contained beneath her
sod the ashes of his own children. The struggle between
the pride of an eminent and lifelong soldier ; the love of
military glory ; the ardent attachment he cherished to the
union of that country, beneath whose flag he had so often
led her sons to victory, on the one hand ; and the behests
of a sympathy which would have moved a less stern heart
than his, and which is common to the most of mankind,
on the other, must have been one of sore trial to the vet-
eran chieftain. But the country was soon made acquainted
212 OPENING OF HOSTILITIES.
with the stern reality that Virginia was to be immediately
invaded under the supreme command of General Scott.
The occupation of Fortress Munroe and other outposts on
the Virginia border along the Chesapeake bay, and the
Potomac river, was soon followed by the advance of United
States troops across the river opposite the city of Wash-
ington ; and the occupation of Alexandria and other
places on the soil of Virginia. All doubt was now dis-
pelled ; whereupon the Confederate government, in order
to be near the scene of action, removed from the city of
Montgomery in Alabama, and fixed its temporary location
at the city of Richmond in Virginia. Most of the troops
in the service and those being tendered and received were
hurried to the Virginia frontier by railroad, to aid in ar-
resting the progress of and repelling General Scott's
forces.
The requisitions for troops by the President upon the
States were promptly filled by volunteers ; who were so
eager to engage in the active campaign, and so impatient
to reach the post of danger, that they could barely be re-
strained in the camps of instruction until they could be
taught the ordinary commands and evolutions of the com-
pany and regimental drill. In most instances, the ex-
penses of fitting out the volunteers for the field were borne
by the men themselves, and by contributions freely made
by citizens. The sympathy of the people for the absent
and departing soldiers was deejD and universal. The tears
of multitudes of people in all conditions and circumstances
in life, and even of the slaves, flowed copiously, betoken-
ing the warmth of their devotion to the departing compa-
nies and regiments. The men of the towns and cities,
and along the lines of railroad, greeted them with shouts
and huzzas ; and the women with the waving of miniature
FIRST YEAR IN THE FIELD. 213
flags and handkerchiefs, and with smiles of admiration,
and words of comfort and cheer ; and lavished upon them
the substantial and luxuries of life. In most houses where
a sick soldier might chance to lodge, he was an object of
more tender regard than a sick inmate. The bodies of
the dead were returned under escort to the bereaved rel-
atives at home. The enthusiasm of the people was only
surpassed by that of the soldiers themselves, and they re-
sponded to the greetings of the people everywhere with
shouts and yells that rent the air, and spoke a language
of determination and zeal which nothing could surpass,
and which no one could misunderstand. The pay of a
soldier was no part of the inducement to volunteer, in per-
haps a large majority of cases. Of the troops who were
entering the army at this period, it is probable that there
were as many who would have paid, if necessary, for the
privilege of getting into service as there were who would
have declined to go for want of pay. In cases not a few,
where the poor nien who had not subsistence to leave with
their families at home, and who desired to volunteer,
found no difficulty in procuring the promises of their more
opulent neighbors to provide for them in their absence ;
and thousands departed for the field upon the faith of such
unsubstantial reliances whose families were dependent
upon their daily labor for food and raiment, and unable
to procure these without them. The spirit of volunteer-
ing was only equalled by the willingness and anxiety of
the people at home, of both sexes, to aid in whatever work
or contribution seemed necessary to forward the good
cause ; in a word, for the first few months, war went in
silver slippers, and wore only an aspect of glory and re-
nown.
The young men on their way to the war, sported, by
214 OPENING OF HOSTILITIES.
their sides, savage looking dirks and pistols, some anti-
quated, others of the more recent improvements, as if
they expected to fight the enemy with them ; and many
doubtless expected that sort of rencounter, and desired
the opportunity to display their superior prowess in the
imminent deadly breach.
There was extant, a great mania for what, in the par-
lance of this day is denominated "Zouave," which means,
so far as I can comprehend it, that feature in the military
which delights in exhibiting, to the admiring gaze of
spectators, a fantastical and gay military suit, of which
there seems to be no settled model, and of actions and
evolutions, equally fantastic, as if the whole was intended
to strike terror into the hearts of the country people.
For certainly a brave and disclipined army on either side
would not run from the fantastical array of colors and
costumes until those who wore them should show either
superior courage or skill in the use of arms, but would
delig-ht in the advantao;es of vision this irav dress would
afford them on the field. As to the manual exercises and
quirkish motions of the Zouaves, if it should ever occur
that a battle is fought hand to hand with the bayonets,
gun-stocks and barrels, instead of bullets, they might be
of great benefit, for the reason that the men in that case
will already have been taught to strike and dodge the
enemy — to run from and pursue him, as the casualties of
the scuffle might render either tactics necessary.
In reference to most men whom the world calls patriots
it may be noted, that there is a singular mixture of devo-
tion to country with devotion to self. I am not able to
analyze it so far as to designate the exact parts and pro-
portions of each which constitute the great military hero,
the great politician and statesman, and the demagogue.
FIRST YEAR IN THE FIELD. 215
I am certain, however, that the proportions differ in the
different classes, and in different men of the same class.
There is no doubt but there were some few men who
raised companies and regiments for service in this war,
and many privates who volunteered, from a sense of duty
to the country, realizing at the same that it was at the
sacrifice of their personal and private interests. It was
evident, however, from the beginning of hostilities, that a
man who did not take part in the war would stand no
chance whatever for promotion in the civil department,
after it should have terminated. Men love wealth be-
cause it gives power, and in popular governments they
love office for the same reason. This prevailing mania
has made a majority of the intellectual portion of our
countrymen place-hunters and office-seekers ; universal
suffrage and eligibility to offices of honor and profit has^
the effect to stimulate thousands of the ignorant and
uneducated to seek promotion to the lower grades of
office. The volunteering and raising of military forces is
more a matter of calculation than most persons engaging
in them would be willing to confess.
If the war should be of short duration then they ex-
pect to Avear their laurels with gratification and profit
to themselves. If it should last long, then it were better
to have gone into it while there was opportunity to se-
cure the positions of lieutenants, captains, majors, colonels,
etc., than to ultimately have to go as private soldiers to
fill up the decimated companies. Then this love of office
and power was the very salt of the country, for it stimu-
lated the aspiring men not only to volunteer but to bring
to bear all their personal influence upon their fellow citi-
zens to induce them to enter the service. Thus the cause
of the country had its advocates and orators of different
216 OPENING OF HOSTILITIES.
caliber, and upon as widely variant processes of reason and
logic, in every neighborhood throughout our whole bor-
ders. This same spirit coupled with natural bravery and
the love of martial glory was a safe guaranty for the good
conduct of these men after they had entered the service.
It was a little humiliating, however, to observe that while
the change from the walks of civil life to the exposures
and associations of the camp, removed in a great measure
from the restraints of religion and female influence, there
were sad changes in the moral bearing of many men.
Yet at the same time they had not discarded petty jeal-
ousies and contentions for place. This natural weakness
of human nature had much to do in developing the causes
which led to the dismemberment of the old government,
and its effects upon the cause in which we were strug-
gling were to be dreaded if the war should continue for
many years.
The rapidity of increase in the forces on both sides
during the months of May, June, and July evinced to all
that the campaign of Virginia was to be upon a much
larger scale than perhaps either government at first an-
ticipated. It is probably true that the exaggeration by
the press and people for sensational purposes and in a
spirit of braggadocio had the effect from each side to
stimulate the other to double diligence to raise and send
forward countervailing forces. The chief difficulty in the
way of the South was in furnishing arms to the troops who
were willing and anxious to volunteer. Hence the atten-
tion of the government was at an early stage of the war di-
rected to the subject of importing arms through the block-
ade from Europe, and of manufacturing them within the
Confederacy. In this department it appears that no time
was lost or energies spared to meet the pressing demand.
FIRST YEAE IN THE FIELD. 217
The policy of President Lincoln seems to have been
different from that of President Davis in reference to
appointments to high military rank. The former seemed
willing in many instances to trust civilians with impor-
tant commands, while the latter seemed to adhere with
great pertinacity to men of military education and expe-
rience in the field. His fondness and partiality for gradu-
ates of the United States military school at West Point,
where he was educated, had early become a subject of
general remark, and of complaint among those gentlemen
who held high political, professional and social stations,
and who had not had in early life the advantages of West
Point, and of whose fitness to command armies the president
had not been fully impressed. Mr. Lincoln had, how-
ever, found a countercheck to the evils of his policy in
that of promptly removing the appointees when they gave
proof of incompetency.
The plan of General Scott's campaign in Virginia was
to invade from four material points at the same time.
Generals McClellan and Rosecrans advanced into that
portion of the State west of and among the Alleghany
mountains, known as Western Virginia, with forces vari-
ouslv estimated from five to fifteen thousand men. Gen-
eral Patterson commandino; a larg-er force advanced from
the upper Potomac into that fair and fertile region along
the Shenandoah river known as the valley of Virginia.
General McDowell with the principal column moved from
the direction of Washino-ton on the northeast of the
State towards Richmond, while General Butler held the
command in the peninsula. General Huger of the Con-
federate States provisional army held the command of
our forces at Norfolk; General John B. Magruder those
in the peninsula ; those fronting the enemy's advance
218 OPENING OF HOSTILITIES.
from Washington were under Major-General G. T. Beau-
regard ; while the army of the Shenandoah in the valley
was confided to the command of Gen. Joseph E. Johns-
ton. The forces sent to Western Virginia, and which
seemed to have remained in detached portions under Gen.
J. B. Floyd, and other subordinate commanders, were
under the command of Gen. Robert E. Lee. Thus it
appears the government, with a commendable magnanim-
ity and zeal, but with questionable propriety, undertook
the defence of the whole State. The impression of the
country seems to have been that Western Virginia was
not only disloyal to us, but that the expulsion of the
Federal troops from it was impracticable, and that the
occupation of it by the enemy would prove comparatively
harmless to us, as the people there were separated by
mountains from the true and loyal people of Virginia,
over which it was as difficult for the enemy to advance
and invade further, as General Lee found it to carry his
troops and their supplies. The detachments of the forces,
when they met the enemy, it was generally against supe-
rior numbers and sometimes against superior skill. The
hardships and exposures to rain and mud during the
prevalence of the camp diseases of the new troops, sick-
ness and deaths, retreating before superior forces, and
notwithstanding occasional successes and partial advan-
tages gained over the enemy, the general want of success
of the campaign in the mountains had a demoralizing
tendency upon the troops; failed to accomplish the expul-
sion of the enemy from the country, or any substantial
good to the cause of the South.
The surprise and defeat of Confederate forces at Lau-
rel Hill, an advanced out-post under the command of Brig-
adier-General Garnett who was killed in the action, and
FIEST YEAR IN THE FIELD. 219
succeeded in command by Col. James N. Ramsey of the
first regiment of Georgia volunteers, by the Federal forces
under General McClellan may be recorded as the first
reverse of our arms. The manifestation of high soldierly
qualities and talents on the part of General McClellan,
and of great cunning and energy on the part of his Ger-
man subaltern, General Rosecrans, caused no little trepi-
dation in the Southern heart as foreshadowing that we
had to combat with military skill as well as superior
mumbers.
The splendid air-castles, built by men of sanguine tem-
perament, of easy victory, were vanished into thin vapor,
and the unwarranted calculations of thousands of good
and true men, that only a few months were necessary to
demonstrate to the enemy our superior prowess, and com-
pel him to desist from his vain attempt at subjugation,
were modified by the sober second thought that our suc-
cess was to cost more toil and tribulation, and a greater
outlay of blood and treasure, than was at first anticipated.
The birth of the nation was to be attended with pro-
tracted anguish.
And now candor compels the confession that the cam-
paign of 1861 in Western Virginia ended in ill-success,
while in connection with the current events of the year
it had not impaired the general confidence of the people.
So far as is known, the war was opened in Virginia, and
the first shot was fired from a battery at Sewell's point,
under the command of Capt. Peyton Colquitt of Colum-
bus, Georgia, upon a Federal gun-boat. The battalion to
which Captain Colquitt's company was attached was the
first organized force sent from Georgia to Virginia, and
perhaps the first from any other State. As an illustra-
tion of the spirit of the people, and the energy of Gov-
220 OPENING OF HOSTILITIES.
ernor Brown of Georgia, I will be pardoned for the
allusion to the manner in which this battalion was raised
and sent off.
Governor Letcher of Virginia telegraphed from Rich-
mond to Governor Brown at Milledgeville that four com-
panies were needed immediately at Norfolk, and, not
having them ready, he desired to know if Georgia could
despatch them at once. Having no organized forces in
camp, the governor went to the ofhce and, through the
operators of the wires, got captains of city volunteer com-
panies, Collins and Hardeman of Macon, Doyall of Griffin,
and Colquitt of Columbus, to their respective telegraph
offices, and asked them if they would respond to Gov-
ernor Letcher's call. All answered in the affirmative ;
but some asked one, and some two days to get ready,
the members of their companies being citizens and not
being in camp. The governor informed them that they
must decline, or go immediately. "Then we are ready,"
was the unanimous reply. And on the following day
Governor Brown had the gratification to announce to
Governor Letcher, by the telegraph, that the four com-
panies were on the railroads en route to Virginia. In
one or two cases the ladies of the city met and made up
uniform suits for the whole companies before the hour for
their departure the next morning.
The movements of the enemy on the peninsula brought
them in collision with General Magruder's forces on the
tenth day of June, 1861, at Bethel church, where a bril-
liant success was achieved by the Confederates, attended
with considerable slaughter of the Federals, and a re-
markable escape from casualties on our part. In this
engagement. Col. D. H. Hill, of a North CaroHna regi-
ment, acted so gallant a part as to attract the attention
FIRST YEAR IN THE FIELD. 221
and applause of the public and honorable promotion
by the government. The result of the battle, while it
checked and discouraged the enemy on the peninsula,
had the effect to electrify the South, and served greatly
to mature the growing assurance of the army and peo-
ple. The battle of Bethel was but a skirmish compared
with other fields already made memorable in the annals
of the war; and is likely, on account of the smallness
of the force engaged in it, to sink into insignificance.
But its consequences and effects are not to be measured
in the faithful records of the revolution by the numbers
of the slain, or the extent of the temporary advantages
gained over the foe. For in the morale of the army
much depended upon the results of the first conflict of
arms ; and the effect of this success told wonderfully
upon the bearing of other troops upon other fields distant
from Bethel church.
Courage in battle nerves men to act and endure, but
when separated from confidence of success it is of but
little avail. There are doubtless thousands of men who
at the outset would not fight in single combat, but having
confidence in those associated with them in line of battle
they did not yield to the promptings of fear, but stood
firm and discharged their duty well until familiarity with
danger made them careless of its approach, trained and
inured them to action and endurance, and made them
good soldiers.
From the tone of the public journals in the United
States from the early part of the summer it was evident
that there was a strong outside pressure upon General
Scott towards a forward -movement for the purpose of cap-
turing Richmond, the seat of the Confederate government.
But this time-honored chieftain, well aware of the obsta-
222 OPENING OF HOSTILITIES.
cles in the undoubted valor of Southern troops and the
skill of Southern commanders, better known to him than
to the country at large, prudently awaited the maturity
of his ample preparations in the accumulation of men,
munitions, and transportation, upon which he relied for a
successful campaign which should crown his brilHant ca-
reer. The public anxiety was intense. General Johnston,
with characteristic caution, maneuvered against General
Patterson in the valley, and awaited his advance in a state
of preparation to give him battle should he return to
make the attack which the public was led to expect for
several weeks. On the 19th of July a portion of General
McDowell's forces had been put in motion and were en-
countered and signally repulsed by a part of General
Beauregard's forces along the east bank of Bull Run creek.
The intention to attack General Beauregard in large force
being apparent to General Johnston he quickly transferred
his command to the east of the Blue Ridge, and by a
forced march formed a junction with General Beauregard
in time to take a prominent part in the general engage-
ment occasioned by the advance of General McDowell in
force on Sunday morning, July 21st, near Manassas junc-
tion. General Johnston, with a courtesy as rare as his
genius, awarded to General Beauregard the command of
the field although he was of superior rank. The battle
raged, with dreadful loss on both sides, from early in the
morning until the afternoon was considerably advanced,
and with fortune seeming rather to favor the Federals.
The regular army as well as the volunteer forces fought
with a heroism worthy of any cause, which, with the ad-
vantage of largely superior numbers, accounts for the
advantages gained over the Confederates.
It is said, that the enemy were unaware of the fact that
FIRST YEAR IN THE FIELD. 223
Johnston had formed a junction with Beauregard prior to
the engagement, and that they were fighting against their
combined forces; and that the arrival, at an opportune
moment and place, of General Kirby Smith with a divi-
sion of reinforcements, in sight of the contending armies,
was supposed by the Federals to be the coming of Gen-
eral Johnston's army from the valley. From this suppo-
sition or some unknown cause, a general panic seized the
Federal army, followed by a disgraceful stampede of the
whole force, leaving everything in disorder, and complete
victory in the hands of the Confederates.
It is said, that to the Federal army, at a respectful dis-
tance in the rear, there were attached a number of per-
sons of rank in both sexes who had come out to witness
the sport of driving the rebels before the grand Federal
army ; the capture of Richmond, and the suppression of
the rebellion by the planting of the United States flag
upon the dome of the Capitol building. Numerous amaz-
ing relics have been preserved by our troops, gathered
from the field of disorder, which with articles of more value
were scattered in the track of their retreat. Among them
envelopes of letters with mottoes printed announcing the
fall of Eichmond ; others with the picture of a woman
placing the flag upon the Capitol dome. So certain were
the ^United States army and Northern people of an easy
victory, and an almost unobstructed march through our
country.
Hence it is by no means unnatural that dismay should
have suddenly seized the public mind upon the announce-
ment of this unexpected disaster.
It is a misfortune to be regretted, that after the hard
marches and exposures of the Southern troops our army
was not in a condition to advance, follow up, and improve
224 OPENING OF HOSTILITIES.
the advcantages thus gained. The troops had evidently
been chafed by the restraints imposed either by the pol-
icy of the administration in not carrying the war into the
enemy's country, and resting our cause upon the defensive;
or by the want of means and outfit to invade. Our army
was made of volunteers who went out for action ; the de-
moralizing effect of keeping them idle in camp was palpa-
ble, especially when they feel that the opportunities of
success were diminishing with the constant increase of the
enemy's forces. Thus they had lain comparatively idle,
and seen General McClellan take the place of General
McDowell, and by his military character restore confidence
to the broken spirits of the enemy ; and by his skill and
energy they had not only recovered from the deadly blow
stricken at Manassas, but become more formidable than
before ; and our forces were again thrown upon the de-
fensive.
In this action at Manassas, South Carolina lost, among
others her gallant son, Brigadier-General Barnard H. Bee;
while the hearts of all Georgians were made sad by the
fall of her intrepid son, Brigadier-General Francis S. Bar-
tow. A number of officers before but little known, by
their gallantry and ability attracted the public notice ;
among them Brigadier-General James Longstreet, of Ala-
bama ; Brigadier-General Thomas J. Jackson, of Virginia;
and Brigadier-General Bonham, of South Carolina.
The public confidence in Generals Johnston and Beau-
regard was strong and abiding, and the country bowed
with a becoming reverence and resignation to the policy
of the administration, supposing and believing that the
facts, if fully known, would show the superior wisdom of
the executive counsel in restraining the further advance
of our army after the victory of Manassas. There were
I
FIRST YEAR IN THE EIELD. 225
many able men among us who believed that, even if we
were prepared to strike the enemy by invading him, the
true policy for us in the end was still to act on the de-
fensive ; while numerous others were very restive under
the policy, believing that the only true mode for us to de-
fend was to advance and strike blows thick and heavy.
They preferred to make the enemy's country the seat of
the war ; and to make them, as far as possible, not only
sustain the losses and submit to the depredations neces-
sarily following from the presence of large armies, but
draw our support from their territory. They urged their
policy especially as the question of provisions was likely
to become a vital one in the South if the war was long
protracted. It was supposed that under this policy the
northern people Would soon feel themselves directly in-
terested in the cessation of hostilities, in which event the
popular pressure upon Mr. Lincoln would be for peace
instead of war. It was insisted that upon the defensive
policy the government had adopted we not only would
have our entire army to feed from our own resources, but
must necessarily suffer all the damage that would re.^ult
from the presence of two large armies upon our soil.
Those who agreed with the President upon his defensive
policy argued in this wise : We only asked to depart in
peace and to be left alone prior to the war, and that is all
we desire now. We do not desire to lay waste the ene-
my's country or to subjugate the northern people. To
act upon this high moral theory must make for us friends
abroad and even in the enemy's country. If we were to
invade the North the case would be radically changed;
our enemies will then be fighting in the defence of home
and all that is dear or sacred to a people, and, therefore,
whatever differences may exist among them as to the
15
226 OPENING OF HOSTILITIES.
propriety of the war will be immediately forgotten and
they will present to us an unbroken front. That, in a
word, it would be folly to think of invading a country
like the United States, with a population as intelligent as
our own, three times our numbers, and vastly superior to
us in arms and provisions. However much we desired to
see the evils of the war turned upon the invaders them-
selves, these reasons seemed to possess great weight and
rather commended the prudence of the President and
his Cabinet to the more thinking and cautious of our
people.
The reverse of the Federals at Manassas seemed to have
had the effect, after the first shock of disaster and disap-
pointment, to arouse the energies of the government at
Washington and of the people of the United States, who
had up to that time not realized the difficulties in the way
of suppressing the rebellion and restoring the Union.
This effect was manifest from the general and extensive
preparation upon sea and land to invest the whole Con-
federacy. In the South the effect was in a certain sense
injurious. It is true it established general belief in the
success of the revolution and had the desired effect in
building up the confidence of the army, which were so
much accomplished in the right direction if kept within
proper bounds ; but when it caused a relaxation in the
energies of the people it could not be otherwise than dele-
terious. Abroad, Confederate stock went up and, from
the tone of European journals, it was evident our cause
had made a rapid stride at foreign courts. The prospect
of early national recognition seemed to dawn upon us
with a most encouraging lustre. The anxiety of the
Washington cabinet upon this subject was too apparent
to be concealed, and all the arts of diplomacy were brought
FIRST YEAR IN THE FIELD. 227
to bear upon the governments of England and France to
prevent recognition.
In view of the prospect of opening diplomatic relations
with those governments, and for the purpose of expedit-
ing that desirable end, President Davis appointed Mr.
Mason of Virginia and Mr. Slidell of Louisiana as minis-
ters to their courts. The gentlemen succeeded in evad-
ing the blockaders upon our coast, and reached Havana,
in Cuba, where they embarked on a British steamer
bound for Europe. The vessel containing the ministers
was captured by the United States naval forces on the
8th of November, forcibly entered, and the ministers were
carried away and confined in a northern prison. The
insult thus offered to the flag of Great Britain was made
the subject of complaint against the government through
Her Majesty's minister at Washington, and a rupture
between those governments was expected by many, and
ardently wished for by most of our people. But they
misunderstood the genius of the prime minister at Wash-
ington, and the spirit of the government. For the
amende was promptly made, Messrs. Mason and Slidell
released and forwarded on their mission to Europe, in
pursuance to the demands of the English government.
The government of the United States had hitherto,
prior to this war, refused to accede to the proposals of
European powers to ahoYmh privateering hetween civilized
nations at war — regarding it as a relic of barbarism, and
inconsistent with the present advanced stage of Chris-
tianity and civilization — and to place it upon the same
footing with piracy. And now that President Davis had
adopted that among other legitimate modes of warfare,
and inasmuch as the Confederates had no maritime com-
merce, and could not therefore be damaged in case the
228 OPENING OF HOSTILITIES.
enemy should adopt it, the poHcj of aboHshing it by the
code governing belligerent nations became desirable on
the part of the United States. It had been a weapon in
their own hands heretofore, and now its keen edge was to
be turned against them. But the governments of Europe,
inasmuch as it was a point between the dismembered sec-
tions of the government which had declined to accede to
their wishes to abolish it, prudently and sagaciously de-
clined at this juncture to interpose in the matter. And
as the case stood, while we were subjected to the ravages
of invading enemies upon land, the authors of those mis-
chiefs felt the fangs of a deadly serpent upon the high
seas.
If the enemy had confined his depredations in prop-
erty to that belonging to or in the service of our govern-
ment, and his war upon persons to those in arms or
otherwise in the government service, the moral sensibili-
ties of the South would have been strongly appealed to
to respect private property of the people of the United
States whether on sea or land. But it was difficult to see
how a merchant's cargo of goods on board an ocean
steamer should be held more sacred than a farmer's smoke-
house or corn-crib in Virginia ; or the ship upon which
the goods are carried entitled to any more courtesy at the
hands of our people than the private residence of non-
combatants, their fences, growing crops, stock and poultry,
received at the hands of our invaders.
It is one of the evils of war in its most refined sense,
and where all the conventionalities of civilized belligerent
nations are strictly observed, that the innocent must, to
a greater or less extent, suffer with the guilty ; and it
should address itself to the Christian and humane senti-
ments of mankind as one of the strongest reasons why the
FIRST YEAR IN THE FIELD. 229
martial disposition of nations should be replaced by a sen-
timent more in accordance with the teachings of the New-
Testament ; but hope in this direction, which had sprung
up under the general spread of biblical knowledge in
America, had taken its exit. There was no alternative ;
the regeneration of the nations in this respect lies through
the ordeal of a baptism of the people in each other's blood.
When the appetites of the Americans for power, plunder^
and glory shall be satiated on the one hand ; or the love
of justice and freedom be extinct on the other ; then, and
probably not till then, will they cease to resort to arms
to settle their debates.
A great Southern Senator, Mr. Toombs, said in his place,
" The last analysis of liberty is the blood of the brave."
This liberty of which the Senator spoke is a divinity that
has been worshipped under different guises and forms in
all a^res of the world. Altars have been erected to her in
almost every part of the habitable globe, which have
smoked with the blood of millions upon millions of vic-
tims, and still her cormorant appetite is unsatisfied ; her
rites and ceremonies are as variegated under different cir-
cumstances and in different countries and ages as the color
and form of the clouds She has an elder and younger
sister who have ever remained close by her on either side ;
and who each, ever and anon, have passed by her name,
and borne her image ; they are despotism and licentious-
ness. Upon their altars too, have untold millions been
offered. It would have been equally true if the Senator
had said — " They have their last analysis in the blood of
the brave ; and brave men when once aroused, provoked
and enlisted will fight as well for the one as for the other ;
and upon abstract as well as concrete ideas of either."
At an early stage of hostilities, the Federals, to hide a
230 OPENING OF HOSTILITIES.
deeper scheme and more deadly purpose, began to treat
fugitive slaves as contraband of war ; and to afford them
shelter and protection. They held that inasmuch as slaves
were laborers producing supplies for the South, and thus
upholding the so-called rebellion, it was legitimate to de-
prive us of that support; that argument followed to its
logical sequences would, in case such a step should prom-
ise a more speedy termination and certain success of their
enterprise, naturally lead to a general blow at the institu-
tion of slavery — not by statute, but by the bayonet. Thus
this struggle for political independence wound up in one
to prevent our enemies from enslaving us, in order to lib-
erate our slaves. The struggle unfortunately took that
direction, and was attended with partial success to the
Federals ; and they were able to penetrate the interior of
the country, and it necessarily entailed great suffering
upon the people on account of the failure of bread crops
from the deficiency in the labor department; while the
issue appearing to be for and against the institution of
African slavery in the eyes of all foreign nations, those
who were against slavery sympathized with the Federals ;
hence, as the leading nations of the world at that time
were opposed to slavery, the conclusion was that they
rather took sides with our enemies, irrespective of the
true merits of our quarrel.
At an early stage of hostilities, the scheme of a produce
loan was put on foot by the Confederate government, by
which agents were sent through the country to appeal to
the people to come up and meet the wants of the govern-
ment, and enable her to negotiate for arms and munitions
of war, and such articles as were indispensable, by pledg-
ing each a given quantity of their produce of corn, wheat,
cotton, rice, sugar, syrup, bacon, beef, etc., to be deliv-
FIRST YEAR IN THE FIELD. 231
ered by a certain day at certain specified points on the
lines of public transportation. To this appeal, thousands
made a liberal response and large amounts were sub-
scribed, for which government securities were to be taken
by the people in payment.
One of the chief difficulties under which we labored at
that time was the diffuse nature of our military opera-
tions, rendered necessarily so by the many and far dis-
tant points at which the enemy had seen fit to assail us.
It was considered a piece of masterly strategy on the part
of the enemy to make demonstrations in every possible
direction, and thereby call off and weaken our small
forces, and make them a prey to their larger forces.
The people of the Confederacy had manifested a pecu-
liar sensitiveness where the enemy approached them, and
seemed to insist that the government should send forces
wherever the enemy made a demonstration. By this
means the President was harassed between the desire to
concentrate his forces, and the disposition to meet the
wants of the people in every direction. Those upon the
threatened coast seemed to think the energies of the gov-
ernment should be mainly directed to the protection of our
seaports, while the people more remote thought the cities
and sandy plains upon the Atlantic and Gulf coast were
of little importance compared with the grain-growing
regions of the border States.
While the campaign in Virginia to which we have al-
luded was in progress during the current year 1861, scenes
were enacted and operations conducted in other parts of
the Confederacy of deep and absorbing interest. The
work of fortifying the cities of Wilmington, Charleston,
Savannah, Mobile, New Orleans, and numerous other places
had gone bravely on, and the public mind, for a long time
232 OPENING OF HOSTILITIES.
anxious upon the subject, seemed to rest in the belief that
the approaches to these important points were sufficiently
guarded and fortified to justify the hope that they would
be held against any attack likely to be made upon them.
It seemed to be a matter of the first importance to pre-
vent the entrance of the enemy into the Mississippi river
from above or below; as the occupation by them of that
stream would sever the Confederacy and destroy the com-
munication between the States east and west of it. Hence
the strong garrisons that were sent to the forts command-
ing the river below New Orleans, and the fortifications at
different points from Memphis to the neighborhood of the
confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. The dem-
onstrations of the enemy early in the summer made it
necessary to establish a line upon the southern border of
Kentucky to repel the advance of the enemy at the sev-
eral points that were threatened. Major-General Zolli-
koffer, of Tennessee, with a Confederate force held the
command of the southeast part of Kentucky near the
Cumberland Mountains, General Albert Sydney John-
ston, with his headquarters at Bowling Green in Kentucky,
had command of the troops at that point and others thence
west to the Mississippi river, where he succeeded Brigadier-
General S. B. Buckner in command. Major-General Har-
dee, of Georgia, and Brigadier-General Gideon J. Pillow,
of Tennessee, had for several months held commands
along the same line west of the river and in the southeast
portion of Missouri. The entrance of the Cumberland
and Tennessee rivers into the State of Tennessee had been
provided against by the erection of Forts Henry and
Donaldson near the border of Tennessee and Kentucky.
The high military character of Gen. Sj^dney Johnston had
given confidence to the public that the farther advance
FIRST YEAE IN THE FIELD. 233
from that region would be effectually guarded, and that
if Major-General Buell in command of the Federal forces
should attack him, the victory of the Southern troops
would be confidently relied on.
On the 7th of November, Brigadier-General Pillow
achieved a brilliant success over the Federal forces, at
Belmont, west of the Mississippi river, after a desperate
conflict, driving them hotly pursued for several miles to
their gunboats. In this action Brigadier-General Frank
Cheatham, of Nashville, bore a gallant and conspicuous part;
and also Bishop, now General, Leonidas Polk, of Louisiana.
Upon the invasion of Missouri by the Federal General
Lyon, and his capture and dispersion of the organized
State militia, General Jackson tendered to Ex-Governor
Sterlincj Price the chief command of the whole Missouri
State forces, with the rank of major-general, which posi-
tion he accepted ; and by his eminent soldierly qualities
and vast personal popularity succeeded in collecting
around him a band of determined Missourians and entered
upon a series of skilful operations against Lyon which
endeared him to the hearts of the Confederate people.
Brigadier-General JefF. Thompson, a native of Virginia,
and a bold and skilful pioneer of the West, residing in Mis-
souri, upon the call for the State troops by Governor
Jackson, organized early in the summer of 1861 a brigade
of 2,500 men as a separate command with which he, with
a sleepless vigilance, annoyed the Federals during the fall
months, skirmishing with them almost continually. His
engagements at Bloomington, Pattonville, Black Water
Station, Big River Bridge, and Frederickstown in October
had given the name of Jeff. Thompson an early celebrity
in the annals of the war in Missouri and Arkansas, and
rendered it a terror to the Federals in that region.
234 OPENING OF HOSTILITIES.
The Federal General Lyon, by force of superior num-
bers, activity, perseverance and energy, succeeded in
driving General Price before him nearly to the south-
west border of the State, when he united his forces with
those of Gen. Benjamin McCulloch, the partisan leader,
whose laurels won in the Mexican war were still green,
and pointed to him as a rising star in the revolution.
McCulloch's forces consisted of troops from Texas, his
adopted State, Arkansas and Louisiana. A severe and
sanguinary engagement took place on the 9th of August
at Oak Hill near Springfield, west of the Ozark moun-
tains, in Missouri, in which General McCulloch held the
ranking command, and bore himself with a boldness and
intrepidity never surpassed in the annals of the war.
The superior gallantry and skill of the Southern men
were everywhere conspicuous, and resulted in a complete
victory over the forces of General Lyon. The announce-
ment was received with great joy throughout the Con-
federacy. The beauty of the picture, however, was
greatly marred by the fact that the two commanders,
Generals Price and McCulloch, fell into a dispute which
was made public, about the honors of the day's achieve-
ments, and the parts respectively borne by the Missou-
rians, and McCulloch's troops.
Brig. -Gen. John S. Williams, a native of Kentucky, re-
siding at the opening of the war in southern Illinois,
being driven out for his Southern sentiments, came to
Kentucky, and under authority of the President raised a
force of about 1,500 men armed with shot-guns and coun-
try-rifles to operate against the Federals, and rendezvoused
at Prestonsburg. General Nelson, in command of 5,000
Federal troops, approached, and Williams retreated to
Piketon, whither Nelson followed. Williams selected a
FIRST YEAR IN THE FIELD. 235
strong position at Ivy Creek, where Nelson was disas-
trously repulsed, and his army disorganized. Williams
only lost eight men.
The autumn months were enlivened by an engagf'-
ment at Dranesville in northern Virginia ; the surprise
and capture by night of the Federal garrison on Santa
Rosa Island in Florida, and numerous conflicts and skir-
mishes on different parts of the extended field of operations.
On the 20th day of October, a sanguinary engagement
was followed by a splendid victory for the Confederate
arms under the command of General Evans of South
Carolina, at Leesburg, near the Potomac river in Virginia.
The Federal forces that had crossed at that point were
under the command of Generals Stone and Baker, the
latter of whom was killed upon the field. The battle is
said to have been conducted with skill upon the part of
the Confederate commanders, and with inordinate gal-
lantry on the part of officers and troops. The retreat of
the enemy from the field was, if possible, more disgrace-
ful than that at Manassas in July before. Discarding
arms and everything which could retard their flight, leav-
ing artillery on the field, and a large number of prisoners
in our hands, they crowded down the hill to the river in
the most promiscuous and confused masses to escape by
their boats across the river, pursued by the Confederates,
and mown down at every step, while the well, the sick,
wounded and dying were crowded into the boats to over-
flowing, and all in the wildest consternation and dismay.
One densely crowded boat sunk in the middle of the
stream, and many of the unfortunates were drowned. It
adds to the disgrace of the Federals at Leesburg that they
fought, and were whipped, with a force largely superior to
that of the Confederates under General Evans. The
236 OPENING OF HOSTILITIES.
slaughter of Federal troops is described as immense, and
their public journals did not attempt to conceal the fact
that the defeat was overwhelmino- and disgraceful.
The first of November was the time fixed by law for
the election of a president and vice-president of the Con-
federate States to be installed in February next, under
the permanent constitution, when the provisional govern-
ment should have expired by its own limitation. It was
evident from the general tone of public journals in the
South, and from every source of information, that the
great mass of the people retained their confidence in the
wisdom and fidelity of President Davis and Vice-president
Stephens, and were content to have them elected and
placed in power for the next six years, but were averse
to agitation and controversj^, such as would be likely to
flow from opposition in the approaching election. Such
opposition could not spring out of any difference in the
principles and aims of the revolution. No great issues
had sprung up, and there seemed to be no grounds for a
contest except it should be based upon a want of confi-
dence in the administration, or a personal preference for
other men. Hence no opposing ticket was offered, and
the incumbents were elected by the unanimous vote of
the people, so far as they chose to exercise the elective
franchise. It cannot be overlooked, however, that there
was an unorganized element of opposition, which was not
only espoused by men of ability, but found expression in
numerous severe criticisms in such leading journals as the
Richmond Examiner and the Charleston Mercury. The
talents employed in the conduct of these journals for-
bade their being treated with contempt, and rendered
them a source of real annoyance to the friends of har-
mony, who believed that the opposition was not founded
FIRST YEAR IN THE FIELD. 237
upon the highest motives of patriotism. But of its merits
we did not undertake to determine, feeling that time alone
could fully enable an impartial public to decide.
The effect of the enemy's blockade was everywhere
visible upon the people in all grades and conditions in life
in the South ; and in nothing was it more striking than
in the dress of ladies, and the curtailing of table luxuries.
The display of homespun skirts by ladies of wealth and
position had a wonderful effect upon the lovers of style
and fashion in the less affluent grades of society. Knitting
of socks and sewing upon garments for soldiers became
elegant employments in the female circle ; while those
who had not servants to work for them, plied their busy
hands daily in the manufacture of cloth for their own
families, and their absent relatives in the army. The
cutting off of the supply of coffee, and consequent sus-
pension of its use, and the substitution of teas made from
wheat, rye, barley, potatoes, and other articles according
to the tastes of the people, was rapidly curing a national
disease of the people in the Confederate States; and the
effects were everywhere visible in the improved complex-
ion of female cheeks and in the general diminution of ner-
vous headaches, after the first effects of the privation sub-
sided. The use of coffee as a stimulant and sedative, for
its pleasurable temporary effects, had produced a general
disease of the nervous constitution, requiring the applica-
tion periodically according to habit to allay the nervous
irritability which coffee itself produced ; hence the sus-
pension of its use was a sore trial generally to females,
and most persons of a nervous temperament ; but there
was scarcely a case occurred under my observation in
which the general health was not benefited as soon as
the constitution could rally and recuperate from the inju-
238 OPENING OF HOSTILITIES.
rious effects which coffee, through years of indulgence,
had produced.
If the war should have had the effect also to prevent
the general use of spirituous liquors and tobacco, we should
have been richly repaid in a national point of view for the
losses we sustained ; but these articles being so largely
produced within the Confederacy, there was but little
ground to hope for this reform. There was ground to
hope that the general improvement in the physical con-
dition of the women in the South, from quitting the use
of coffee, and resorting to industrial habits and pursuits,
would tell wonderfully upon the mental and physical con-
stitution of the generation to follow us. Now if the men
could be induced or forced to quit the dirty and delete-
rious use of tobacco, and the brutalizing practice of drunk-
enness, what a physical, intellectual and moral race would
grow up to take the place of the present diseased and de-
praved set of men and women !
I should be untrue to my record of latent and visible
causes and effects to pass in silence the wide-spread con-
tagion of drunkenness among the officers of the Confed-
erate army ; or to express the apparently well-grounded
fact that the well-earned laurels of man}'' a gallant and
otherwise promising Confederate, sooner or later ftided
from their brows under the blossoms of bestializing whis-
key and brandy.
The first eJBPects of these stimulants are well calculated
to mislead the good and true, as well as to accelerate the
wicked tendencies of the naturally bad and vicious. They
affect the spirits agreeably, and seem to add to the phys-
ical vitality and improve the digestion and general health;
but apace they blunt the moral sensibilities, gradually be-
numb the physical energies, becloud the intellect, over-
FIRST YEAR IN THE FIELD. 239
come the amiable qualities of nature's noblemen, and im-
part an irascibility to their temper; make steady siege upon
the strongest fortress of mankind — their pride of charac-
ter. And when that is reduced and overcome, the helpless
victims of the temporary pleasure of the habitual use of
the beverage sink to the level of vagabonds. It was folly
to trust that men whose habits were hurrying them
down this inclined plane could successfully discipline and
command troops. The officers thus addicted were really
incapable of the discharge of their important duties, dis-
gusting and demoralizing to their men, and to the coun-
try, and a reproach to the cause. And it was a strong
draft upon religious faith when we were required to be-
lieve that a just God would be propitious to the country
while these evils were tolerated by the ruling authorities.
There were grounds to hope that this blighting disease
that infested the moral atmosphere of the (Jonfederate
camp would soon reach its crisis when the axe would be
laid to the root. Officers had to cease to be drunken or
be displaced if we wished to have a satisfied and disci-
plined army, or would hope to win battles. The low
murmur of subalterns and privates gave an uncertain
sound from the line of encampments, and if the evil was
not arrested general demoralization must have ensued.
There is an aspect in which war seems to be at radical
variance with the teachings of Christianity. It is in refer-
ance to the observance of the holy sabbath day. It
would seem impracticable in many emergent cases to sus-
pend operations on that day ; the march of armies, the
running of railroad cars, and steamboats under the regu-
lations of government for transporting mails, troops, and
army supplies, and the operation of telegraph lines for
the transmission of news, are necessary to a state of war,
240 OPENING OF HOSTILITIES.
and it is not apparent to my mind how the war can be
successfully carried on and these practices avoided. But
the prevalent custom in the army of making the sabbath
a day of review and inspection was certainlj^ reprehensible
and shocking to the pious portion of our countrymen,
while there seemed to be no reason in a military point of
view for that desecration of the Lord's day. The same
authority which forbade the crimes of theft and murder,
also enjoined the observance of the Christian sabbath
Now if these crimes were constantly practised by the
command of the government, it would be vastly more
repulsive to the moral sensibilities for the reason that
they violated the palpable laws of nature, and the mischiefs
flowing from them were immediate and perceivable.
But they no more certainly contravene the heavenly
command, and we have no authority to support the belief
that they would certainly provoke the Divine displeasure,
than does the violation of the holy sabbath. Still there
were numerous evidences in the history of the expiring
year's operations to satisfy our learned clergy, and many
of our spiritual minded people, that the Supreme Euler
of the world had signally interposed in our behalf
There was a general advance of prices of all articles of
apparel and provisions, owing to the growing scarcity in
all that we were accustomed to bring from other sections,
or from foreign countries, and to the decrease in produc-
tions and the waste of the army. The temptation to en-
gage in speculation in these was more than the public
virtue could resist, or public odium frown down. The
number of those who obtained their consent to de-
rive personal advantages from the woes and misfortunes
of the country, and the wants of the self-sacrificing poor,
seemed rather to be on the increase ; and the danger was
riEST YEAE IN THE FIELD. 241
that the great number of heretofore respectable men who
had thus stifled their consciences, and were prepared to
barter their country for gain, would continue to increase
until this deadly species of treason, not overt, should be-
come itself, respectable.
The public confidence seemed firm, that notwithstand-
ing the temporary scarcity the resources were sufficient
to produce the supply within reasonable time, in most ar-
ticles of primary necessity. The limited number of cotton
factories, and the great want of cotton cards in the hands
of the people who had, in a great measure, suspended the
domestic manufactures, gave grounds to fear that we
should be closely pressed in obtaining a supply of cloth-
ing. The subject of a supply of salt to meet the wants
of this country during a long, continued blockade was one
of the most serious that the public mind was called upon
to digest during the war. A portion of the salines in Vir-
ginia were already within the lines of the enemy's military
operations, while those which were not, were liable to con-
stant interruption. On the coast, all operations for the
manufacture of salt were necessarily subject to be broken
up at any time by the enemy's fleets. The reclaiming of
the deposits of salt from the beds of smoke houses, where
it had settled from the dripping of pork, had aided some
in supplying this essential article ; while it was hoped that
discoveries of salines might be made, and operations pro-
jected at points where salt could be safely manufactured.
Some was imported through the blockade and the supply
on hand, by strict economy, was made to extend far be-
yond the time to which it would hold out with the ordi-
nary lavish mode of using it. It was evident, however,
that our people who were determined upon the accom-
plishment of independence, would live without salt, or
16
242 OPENING OF HOSTILITIES.
upon a very small quantity, rather than contemplate the
idea of surrendering to the enemy.
The question of subsistence for the families of poor
men who were in the public service, and who were desti-
tute of the necessaries of life, assumed a grave aspect.
It was found that private contributions and individual
charity, however promising upon the opening of the war,
had proven to be an uncertain reliance, and that suffering
for want of food and clothing would follow unless some
certain provision was made for their support. It was
conceded on all hands that they were entitled to a sup-
port from the property holders of the country. The hus-
bands, sons, fathers, or brothers who customarily sup-
ported them, being now detained from them in the post
of exposure and danger, or having died or become dis-
abled in service, in a struggle for the protection of prop-
erty, the sentiment was general that the holders of that
property ought to see to it that the helpless ones did not
want for the necessaries of life ; it was found also that pri-
vate contributions, even if they could be relied on, operated
very unequally upon the holders of property. There
were some also who were naturally very liberal and patri-
otic, and would from charitable impulses give bountifully,
while others from natural stinginess or lukewarmness in
the cause gave but very little, and others nothing at all.
In view of this, and fully alive to the necessity of pro-
viding a support for them, the Legislature of the State
of Georgia, and perhaps of other States, empowered the
county court of each county to impose a large tax upon
the property of the citizens thereof to raise a fund for
this purpose. The error of this system was found upon
trial to be that the counties having the least property
would generally have within their limits the most paupers.
EIKST YEAR IN THE FIELD. 243
Those very rich counties where there were but few fami-
lies too poor to support themselves were almost exempt
from the burden of supporting the poor : while in the
populous poor counties the burden on the few small hold-
ers of property was either unsupportable, or the poor
left unprovided for.
Experience demonstrated the necessity of drawing the
pauper fund from the public treasury of the State, so
that property wherever located was reached, and the
poor whose necessities had been brought upon them by
the withdrawal of their reliance for a support to serve in
the Confederate army, were partially supported.
One portentous aspect of our affairs seemed to indicate
a tendency to alienation between the rich and the poor of
the people, and the troops of our army. The means of
supplying the poor in many cases decreased, while the ap-
plicants for bounty increased, and not unattended in many
instances with a spirit of exaction which was not visible
at the outset. In other cases the ardor of patriotism and
the breadth of charity alike decreased under the growing
prospects of realizing high prices from speculators and ex-
tortioners for their bread and meat. Hence, their grow-
ing apathy to the idea of lavishing upon the hungry poor
around them, notwithstanding the promises made to the
departing soldiers, far away from home, enduring hard-
ships, privations, and exposure to danger. This evil in-
creased with the prospective advance of high, prices, and
with every new levy of troops, which increased the num-
ber of paupers in almost every neighborhood in the South.
The reality of supporting other men's families for one,
two, or three years, was quite different from that outburst
of evanescent charity that flowed into the laps of the poor
upon the breaking out of hostilities. The reflex influence
244 OPENING OF HOSTILITIES.
of the discontents in the home circle upon the poor men
in the army, after a few more months when they had be-
come tired of the service, and sought pretexts to complain,
was deleterious.
We close this imperfect review of the year 1861, and
await with anxiety the now undeveloped changes which
the incoming year would make, with the remark that,
surveying the whole field of operations, it appeared that
the prospect of eventual success was high ; that the ob-
stacles in the way were not insuperable ; that we had no
real cause to despond, that our condition was every way
as good as could have been expected ; and that, with the
continuation of Divine favor, we must sooner or later be
a disenthralled and independent people. It was in the
power of our enemies to long harass and perplex us ; to
lay waste our cities, destroy our fields and industrial re-
sources, shut us out from communication with the world,
crimson many a field with the best blood of our country,
and literally clothe the South in mourning for her gallant
dead ; but we did not believe it in their power ever to
subjugate us ; and such was the prevailing sentiment of
our people at that time.
CHAPTER YII.
Defence of Georgia by State Forces.
On the 6th of November, 1861, Governor Brown, on the
assembling of the Legislature, in his general message,
makes the following succinct statement on the subject
of the
DEFENCE OF THE STATE.
" The Act of the last Legislature authorized the Goveruor to call out ten
thousand volunteers, if necessary, for the defence of the State.
" Early in the spring I divided the State into four sections or brigades in-
tending, if necessary, to raise one brigade of volunteers in each section, and
appointed one major-general and two brigadier-generals with a view to the
prompt organization of one division in case of emergency. The position of
major-general was tendered to Gen. Henry R. Jackson, who has lately gained
a very important victory over a greatly superior force of the enemy in north-
western Virginia, who declined it in favor of Col. William H. T. Walker,
late of the United States Army and a most gallant son of Georgia. I then,
in accordance with the recommendation of General Jackson and the dictates
of my own judgment, tendered the appointment to Colonel Walker, by whom
it was accepted. The office of brigadier-general was tendered to and accepted
by Col. Paul J. Semmes for the second brigade, and to Col. William Phillips
for the fourth brigade. With a view to more speedy and active service
under the Confederate government. General Walker and General Semmes
resigned before they had organized their respective commands. About this
time our relations with the government of the United States assumed so
threatening an aspect that I ordered General Phillips to organize his brigade
as rapidly as possible, and to throw the officers into a camp of instruction for
training that they might be the better prepared to render effective those
under their command. This camp of instruction was continued for about
wo weeks and the officers sent home to hold their respective commands in
readiness. This was the condition of our volunteer organization early in
June when the United States troops crossed the Potomac and invaded the
soil of Virginia. Not knowing how soon a similar invasion of our own soil
might be made by a landing of troops upon our coast, I ordered General
Phillips to call his whole brigade into a camp of instruction and hold them in
246 DEFENCE OF GEORGIA BY STATE FOECES.
readiness for immediate action should emergencies require it. This order
was promptly obeyed by the energetic and efficient officer to whom it was
given. General Phillips, assisted by Adjutant-General Wayne and Major
Capers, the superintendent of the Georgia Military Institute, pressed for-
ward the instruction and preparation of the troops witli great activity and
energy. The troops remained in camp from tlie 11th of June till the 2d of
August. They were a noble, patriotic, chivalrous band of Georgians, and I
hazard nothing in sajing, military men being the judges, that no brigade in
the Confederate service was composed of better material, or was better
trained at that time for active service in the field. The season having so
far advanced that it was not probable that our coast would be invaded before
cold weather, T tendered the brigade to President Davis for Confederate
service in Virginia. The President refused to accept the tender of the
brigade, but asked for the troops by regiments. Believing that a due respect
for the rights of the State should have prompted the President to accept
those troops under their State organization, and if any legal obstacle in the
way of accepting a brigade existed that it should have been removed by the
appointment of the general who had trained the men, and who was their
unanimous choice, to continue to command them in active service, I at first
refused to disband a State organization, made in conformity to the statute,
and tender the troops by regiments ; more especially as the President only
demanded the two regiments which would have left the three battalions to
be disbanded or maintained as battalions through the balance of the season
by the State. Finally the president agreed to accept the battalions and
regiments, and in view of the pressing necessity for troops in Virginia, I
yielded the point, and accepted General Phillips's resignation, and permitted
the troops to be mustered into the Confederate service by regiments and
battalions.
" About the time these troops left the secretary of war also ordered out of
the State the regiment of Regulars under Colonel Williams, and the 2d
regiment of volunteers commanded by Colonel Semmes, both excellent regi-
ments, well drilled and armed. This left the coast almost entirely defence-
less. By that time I had permitted nearly all the arms of the State to go
into the Confederate service, and it has been a very difficult matter to get
arms enough to supply the troops since ordered to the coast.
" At the lime Fort Pulaski was by an ordinance of our State Convention
turned over to the Confederate government the number and size of the guns
in the fort were very inadequate to its successful defence against a fleet with
heavy guns, and, as the secretary of war made no provision for the proper
supply of guns or ammunition I deemed it my duty to purchase, with funds
from the State treasury, the necessary supply, which was done at a cost of
$101,521.43. In this estimate is included the freights paid on the supply
and a number of heavy guns sent to other parts of the coast together with
work done on gun carriages, etc. During the months of August and Sep-
DEFENCE OF GEOKGIA BY STATE FORCES. 247
tember our climate was considered a sufficient protection of our coast against
invasion ; but an attack was reasonably looked for so soon as the advanced
stage of the season would render the health of an army on the coast secure.
I had petitioned tlie secretary of war to send a larger force to our coast, prior
to the order by which I called out General Phillips's brigade, and had offered
to supply promptly any number of troops needed in obedience to a requisi-
tion from the War Department, and had mentioned five thousand as the num-
ber which I considered necessary. He replied, declining to order so many,
and I felt it to be my duty to hold State troops in readiness to meet any con-
tingency until the period when the climate would be a sufficient protection.
" Early in September I visited the coast and inspected the fortifications
and batteries which had been thrown up by Confederate authority. I was
fully satisfied that the number of troops upon the coast in the Confederate
service was entirely inadequate to its defence, and as no requisition was
made upon me for any increase of the force, I felt it to be my duty to call
out State troops and increase the force as soon as possible. It is true the
State was not invaded, but the danger was considered so imminent as to
admit of no further delay and I was of opinion that my action was justified
by both the letter and spirit of the constitution of the Confederate States.
" In the early part of September last I appointed Gen. George P. Harrison,
of Chatham county, a brigadier-general, under the Act of the last session of
the Legislature, and ordered him to organize a brigade of volunteers armed
as far as we had the means with military weapons, and the balance with
good country rifles and shot guns, and to throw them into camp of instruc-
tion near the coast where they could readily be used when needed. General
Harrison has pressed forward the organization with his characteristic prompt-
ness and energy and now has a fine brigade under his command. I have
also, within the last few days, appointed Maj. F. W. Capers a brigadier-general
and ordered him to take command of the second brigade now about
organized.
" When I permitted nearly all the State's guns to go out of the State in
the summer, I entertained the hope that such number of the troops with the
guns as might be needed would be permitted to return to our coast in
case of necessity during the winter. Considering the danger imminent, I
lately requested the secretary of war to order back to our coast five regi-
ments of armed Georgia troops. This request was at the time declined by
the secretary, who agreed, however, to supply the Confederate general in
command at Savannah with one thousand of the Enfield rifles lately
imported.
" As very little expenditure has been made by the Confederate govern-
ment to place Georgia in a defensive condition, and as the number of Con-
federate troops upon the coast is not sufficient to meet the necessities of the
service, and as the enemy's fleet is now off our coast, I am of opinion that
the State will be compelled in a very great degree to take her own defences
243 DEFENCE OF GEORGIA BY STATE FORCES.
into her own hands, and I therefore reconamend such additional legislation
as the General Assembly may think necessary for that purpose together with
such appropriations of money as may be required for a bold and vigorous
defence of our beloved State against the aggressions of a wicked and power-
ful foe. Should we have to continue our troops in the field, which I think
quite probable, during the winter, an appropriation of less than 83,500,000
will be insufficient to meet tlie exigencies of the service for the ensuing year.
" It is true the sum asked for is large, but the emergency in which we are
placed and the results wliich must follow our action are such, that we cannot
for a moment stop to count the cost. The only question proper for discus-
sion now is, how many men and how much money are necessary to protect
the State and repel the invasion. Other States have voted larger sums than
I have asked. I see by the message of Governor Harris, that the gallant
State of Tennessee has appropriated and expended 85,000,000 as a military
fund within the last six months.
" How the amount of money above demanded is to be raised, is a question
for the serious consideration of the General Assembly. The war tax imposed
by the Confederate government, together with the expenses assumed by dif-
ferent counties for supplies needed by their companies in the service, will
greatly increase the burdens of taxation. If we add this additional sum to
that to be collected within the present year, the burden will be too onerous.
On the other hand, we should not forget that the debt which we now incur,
with the interest, has to be paid by us and our posterity. While we cannot
avoid some increase of the public debt of the State, I think it wise that we
increase it as little as possible, and that we meet a large part of our neces-
sary expenditures by taxation.
"I therefore recommend the enactment of a law authorizing the collection,
during the present fiscal year, of one million of dollars by taxation, for State
purposes, and the sale of State bonds bearing such rate of interest as will
command par in the market, to an amount necessary to raise the balance.
If the interest is fixed at a high rate, the State should reserve the right to
redeem the bonds at no very distant period. In the management of private
afEairs, I have generally noticed that he who is largely indebted, and keeps
his property and pays heavy interest rather than sell property enough to pay
the debt and stop the interest, is seldom prosperous; so it is with a State.
The revolution has happened in our day ; its burdens belong to the present
generation, and we have no right, by a very large increase of our public debt,
to transmit the greater portion of them to generations yet unborn."
The Transfer of State Troops to the Confed-
eracy.
The subject of maintaining a separate military force,
by the State, sufficient for the defence of her coast in
DEFENCE OF GEOKGIA BY STATE FORCES. 249
addition to the large drain upon the population by troops
already in the Confederate service, having been much
discussed by the public journals, the General Assembly
took the following action on the 16th December, 1861 : —
" Resolved, By the General Assembly of Georgia, that the Governor be,
and he is hereby authorized and instructed to tender to the Confederate
Government the volunteer forces called into service under the lavf of 1860,
or which may hereafter be called into service for the State defence, in com-
panies, battalions, regiments, brigades or divisions, as may be found to be
acceptable to the war department of the Confederate States ; Provided, That
the Confederate States will receive them for the term of their enlistment and
for local defence in this State, under the act of Congress to provide for
local defence and special service, approved August 21, 1861 ; And provided
further, That, if the Confederate States shall not accept said troops, in that
event the troops shall remain in service as State troops, under the terms of
their enlistment ; And provided further, That such tender shall be made, so far
as the troops now in the State are concerned, before the 15th day of January
next, and before a greater sum than one million of dollars is raised or ex-
pended as provided for in the 20th section of the general appropriation bill ;
And provided further. That none of said troops shall be transferred to the
Confederate service without their full consent, first fairly obtained, by com
panics, if organized as independent companies, by battalions, if organized in
independent battalions, or by regiments if organized in regimeuts.
" Be it further Resolved, That we earnestly recommend the Confederate
Government to receive said State forces, should they assent, with all their
field and general officers, and if there be no law now authorizing such accept-
ance we respectfully request our Senators and Representatives to urge the .
passage of a bill to efiect so desirable an object.
" Assented to December 16, 1861."
The following extract from the annual message of
Governor Brown, the 6th of November, 1862, contains
a full account of the transfer : —
" In compliance with the resolution of the General Assembly passed at its
last session, directing me to transfer the State troops to the Confederacy
with the consent of the troops, I ordered the question of transfer to be
submitted to a fair vote of each organized body of troops, and the majority
against the transfer amounted almost to unanimity. Soon after the passage
of the Conscription Act, however, which passed after the expiration of the
term of enlistment of part of the men, but a short time before the end of
250 DEFENCE OF GEOKGIA BY STATE FORCES.
the term of much the larger portion of them, the Secretary of War informed
me that all the State troops between 18 and 35 years of age must go into
the Confederate service. At that time an attack upon the city of Savannah
was daily expected, and for the purpose of avoiding conflict and collision
with the Confederate authorities in the face of the enemy, I agreed to yield
the point, and I immediately tendered the State army to Brigadier-General
Lawton, who then commanded the Military District of Georgia, Major
General Henry R. Jackson, who commanded the State troops, having retired
from the command to prevent all embarrassment. General Lawton accepted
the tender, and assumed the command of the troops. The claim made by the
Secretary of War did not include those under 18 or over 35 years of age,
but it was thought best to tender the whole together, as the detachment of
those between 18 and 35 from each organization would have disorganized
the entire force.
" While referring to the subject, I feel it a duty which I owe to the gal-
lant officers and brave men who composed the State army to say, that they
were, at the time of the transfer, as thoroughly organized, trained and disci-
plined, as probably any body of troops of equal number on the continent
who had not been a much longer time in the field. They had performed
without murmur, an almost incredible amount of labor in erecting fortifica-
tions and field works necessary to the protection of the city, and had made
their position so strong as to deter the enemy, with a force of vastly supe-
rior numbers, from making an attack. While they regretted that an
opportunity did not offer to show their courage and efiiciency upon the bat-
tle-field, they stood, like a bulwark of stout hearts and strong arms, between
the city and the enemy, and by their chivalrous bearing and energetic prep-
aration, in connection with the smaller number of brave Confederate
troops near, saved the city from attack and capture, without bloodshed and
carnage.
" It is but justice to Major-General Jackson, that it be remarked, that he
had, with untiring energy and consummate ability, pressed forward the prep-
aration of the defences and the training of the army, and that the people of
Georgia owe much of gratitude to him for the safety of the city of Savannah
and its present freedom from the tyrannical rule of the enemy. There is not,
probably, an intelligent, impartial man in the State who does not regret that
the services of this distinguished son of Georgia should not have been prop-
erly appreciated by the Confederate authorities, and that he should not, after
the Georgia army was transferred, have been invited by the President to a
command equal to his well known ability and merit. This was requested
by the Executive of this State, which request was presented to the President
by her entire delegation in Congress.
" It is also due Brigadier-Generals George P. Harrison. F. W. Capers, and
W. H. T. Walker, that their names be honorably mentioned for enlightened
generalship and efficiency as commanders of their respective brigades. The
EAISING EEVENUE BY THE STATE. 251
Executive of the State, appreciating the merits of these oflficers, asked for
positions for them as commanders in the armies of the Confederacy, but
neither of them, so far as I know, has been tendered any command. If this
might be excused as to Generals Harrison and Capers, on the ground that
they were not graduates of West Point and old army officers, though one of
them has a thorough military education, and the other is known to be a most
valuable, energetic military man, having the confidence of the whole people
of the State, this excuse does not apply in the case of General Walker, who is
a son of Georgia, a graduate of West Point and an old soldier, who has shed
his blood in his country's service on many a battle field. His ability and
gallantry are acknowledged by all who admire cool courage and high-toned
chivalry. But no one of the Georgia generals who had commanded her
State army has since been invited to a position, and even this gallant old sol-
dier is permitted to remain in retirement, while thousands of Georgia troops
who entered the service of the Confederacy under requisitions upon the
State, and whose right, under the Constitution, to be commanded by gener-
als appointed by the State is too clear to admit of doubt, are thrown under
the command of generals appointed from other States, many of whom have
had neither the experience in service, nor the distinction which General Walker
has, while confronting the enemies of his country, purchased with blood upon
the battle field."
Raising Revenue by the State.
In the annual message of November 6, 1861, the Gov-
ernor made the following recommendation as to the
methods of raising revenue :
SALE OF STATE BONDS.
" The Act of the last General Assembly of the State which appropriated
one million of dollars as a military fund for the year 1861, made provision
for raising the money by the sale of six per cent. State bonds. At the time
of the passage of the Act our six per cent, bonds were above par in the
market and were eagerly sought after by capitalists. Soon after the dissolu-
tion of the United States Government, bonds and stocks of all kinds were
greatly depreciated in the market and it became impossible to raise money
at par on any securities bearing only six per cent, interest. The Govern-
ment of the Confederate States fixed the rate of interest on its bonds at
eight per cent, and persons having money to invest preferred these bonds to
the six per cent, bonds of any State. I was consequently unable to raise
mo^iey on the bonds bearing the rate of interest fixed by the statute without
putting them upon the market at a considerable discount. After some
negotiation most of the banks of this State agreed, each in proportion to
252 EAISING EEVENUE BY THE STATE.
the amount of its capital stock, to advance to the Treasury at seven per cent,
such sum as might be necessary to conduct our military operations. This
advance was made upon a statement placed upon the Executive Minutes
and a copy forwarded to each, by which I agreed to recommend the Legis-
lature when assembled to authorize the issue of seven per cent, bonds to
each for the sum advanced, payable at the end of twenty years, the interest
to be paid semi-annually and the State to reserve to herself the right, at her
option, to redeem the bonds by paying to the holders the principal and inter-
est due at the end of five years. Upon this agreement, a copy of which is
herewith transmitted together with a statement of the sum advanced by
each bank, the wants of the Treasury were relieved and such sums have been
advanced from time to time as the necessities of the State required. It is
proper that I mention in this connection that the Central Railroad and
Banking Company through its able and patriotic president, the Hon. R. R.
Cuyler, tendered to the State one hundred thousand dollars and took six per
cent, bonds in payment before any other bank had acted and at a time
when money could not be commanded in the market at that rate. This
conduct was alike liberal and patriotic and was followed by agreement on
the part of several other banks, each to take ten per cent, upon its capital
stock, to which the six per cent, bonds were issued accordingly. I do not
think it right that these last named banks should be permitted to sustain
loss on account of their liberality, and I therefore recommend that the six
per cent, bonds issued to each bank in this State on account of these sums
advanced, be taken up, and that seven per cent, bonds be substituted in their
place, and also that seven per cent, bonds be issued to all the other banks
for the sums advanced by them in accordance with the agreement upon
which they made their respective advances. This would place all the banks
upon an equality and do justice to each of them. The part of the loan which
has been taken amounts to $867,500. Of this sum $25,000 of the six per cent,
bonds were issued to Sharps Manufacturing Company of Connecticut, in
part pay for carbines purchased from the company, leaving the sum of
$842,500 taken by the banks of this State upon which only $305,000 of bonds
have issued, the balance having been advanced without the issue of bonds
upon the contract above mentioned. While nearly the whole amount of the
military appropriation had been expended prior to the end of the fiscal year,
the receipts from the State Road and from other sources have been such as
to meet the ordinary expenses of the government as well as the extraordinary
appropriations of the last Legislature ; also to pay part of the drafts upon
the military fund and to leave in the Treasury at the end of the fiscal year a
net balance of $324,099.86. As this sum in the treasury was not appropri-
ated for military purposes, but is mostly appropriated for other purposes and
undrawn, I had no right under the constitution to draw upon it, and as the
military fund was lately exhausted and the perilous condition of the State
required large expenditures and prompt action for the defence of the coast,
EAISING EEVENUE BY THE STATE. 253
it became necessary for me to negotiate a further loan with the banks of
Savannah to meet the emergency till an appropriation could be made. This
I thought better than to convene the Legislature in extra session a very
short time previous to the regular session. Under this arrangement I have
received from the banks of Savannah through G. B. Lamar, Esq., whose
services have been of great value to the State both in New York prior to the
secession of Georgia from the old Union, and in Savannah since that time,
such sums as the service required, for the repayment of which it will be nec-
essary to provide out of the militaiy fund to be appropriated at the present
session. The amount advanced is not yet large, but it will become nec-
essary to increase it daily till an appropriation is made to meet the heavy
expenditures now being incurred to sustain our troops in the field. I
earnestly solicit for this subject the early attention of the General Assembly.
TREASURY NOTES.
" It is possible the State might find it difiicult to raise by the sale of bonds,
the portion of the money above recommended to be raised in that way for
the ensuing year. Should it be found that such is the case, I recommend
that the Treasurer of this State be authorized to issue, under the order of
the Governor, Treasury notes, similar to those issued by the Treasury Depart-
ment of the Confederate States ; and that said notes be made receivable in
the payment of taxes, or any other debt due the State, or the State Road.
" And for the purpose of giving these notes credit as currency, let provi-
sion be made by law, that any person presenting at the Treasury five hun-
dred, or one thousand dollars of them, shall be entitled to have and receive
for said notes a bond of the State of Georgia, for the same amount, bearing
eight per cent, interest, payable semi-annually, the principal to be paid at the
end of ten years ; with the like privilege for each additional amount of five
hundred or one thousand dollars presented.
" This would place the notes upon a basis of security that the most cautious
could not suspect, and would doubtless enable the State to raise such sums
as her necessities may require. With this security, it is believed that our
banks could not fail to receive the notes on deposit, and that they would be
received in payment of debts, and answer all the purposes of currency. As
the faith of the State would be pledged for their redemption, no higher se-
curity would be asked by her citizens."
In the annual message of November 6, 1862, the Gov-
ernor makes the following statement in regard to those
notes : —
" The Appropriation Bill passed at your last session made it my duty, in
case there should not, at any time, be money in the Treasury to meet any ap-
254 EAISING EEVENUE BY THE STATE.
propriation, to raise it by the sale of State bonds, or by issuing Treasury notes,
as I might think best. In each case where I had the discretion, I did not
hesitate to decide to issue Treasury notes, bearing no interest, in place of
bonds bearing interest; and I have found these notes not only current, but
in great demand as an investment. The whole amount of Treasury notes is-
sued is $2,320,0^0.
" The notes are payable in specie or eight per cent, bonds, six months after
a treaty of peace, or when the banks of Augusta and Savannah resume spe-
cie payments if before that time. These notes have generally been laid away
as a safe investment by banks and others into whose hands they have fallen;
and it is a rare occurrence to see one in circulation. Should it become nec-
essary, as it probably will, to extend the issue to meet part of the liabilities
of the Treasury for the present fiscal year, I respectfully recommend that
no alteration be made in the form of the notes, as there is on hand a very
considerable amount of the printed bills that can soon be issued without ex-
pense, which would be useless in case of any change in the present form, and
it would cost great delay and expense to procure paper and have others pre-
pared.
" The only objection insisted upon against the issue of Treasury notes, in
place of the sale of bonds to meet the demands on the Treasury, is, that the
issue of a large amount of notes to be circulated as currency, depreciates the
value of paper currency in the market. This is unquestionably true, as evi-
denced by the present state of our currency. But it is equally true that
enough of paper currency must be issued, in the present condition of the
country, to meet the demand. Suppose the State needs a million of dollars,
and puts her bonds in the market to raise it, and receives paper currency in
payment for them, it is quite evident that the Confederacy, or the banks,
must issue a million to meet this demand, in addition to the issue they would
otherwise- make for other purposes; and the same depreciation growing out
of a redundancy of paper currency follows, which would happen, were the
State to issue a million of dollars in her own notes, and thus meet her own
demand. The question is not one of the depreciation of the currency by over
issues of paper, as the number of dollars in paper currency to be placed upon
the market is the same in either case, but it is simply a question of interest.
Shall the State use her own notes, which pass readily as currency without in-
terest, and are generally laid away as an investment, or shall she pay interest
to a corporation for the privilege of using and circulating its notes, founded
upon a less secure basis than her own? In my opinion there is no room for
hesitation in making the decision in favor of Treasury notes. The amount
of interest saved to the Treasury in one year at seven per cent, upon the is-
sue of notes already made in place of bonds, is $162,400. To this might have
been added the further sum of $170,870, had I been authorized by the stat-
ute to issue and use Treasury notes in place of bonds to meet the Confed-
erate war tax. This statute was a special one for a special purpose, however.
RAISING REVENUE BY THE STATE. 255
and confined me to the use of bonds without giving me discretion to issue
Treasury notes."
In the annual message of November 6, 1862, the Gov-
ernor makes the following statement as to the disburse-
ment of the five million appropriation :
" Of the five millions of dollars, appropriated at your last session for mili-
tary purposes, only '|2,539 290.25 have been drawn from the Treasury during
the fiscal year. Of this sum |350,000 has been returned by Lieut.-Col. Jared
I. Whitaker, Commissary- General, and $50,000 by Lieut.-Col. Ira R. Foster,
Quartermaster-General, and |58,286 by Major L. H. Mcintosh, Chief of Ord-
nance, for stores in their respective departments, sold to officers under the
army regulations, and to the Confederacy after the State troops were trans-
ferred. The amount of the appropriation which has been used is, therefore,
$2,081,004.25. Of this sum $100,000 was expended in payment for arms
purchased in England prior to your last session ; and $50,000 for iron to
be used in fortifications and upon the gunboat called the ' State of Georgia.'
This boat was built under the supervision of Major-General Jackson while
in command, and completed after he retired. The balance of the money for
its construction was contributed by the cities of Savannah, Augusta, and
other corporations, by soldiers, and chiefly by the ladies of this State, who
have shown since the commencement of our struggle, on all proper occasions,
a liberality and patriotism worthy the most distinguished matrons of the
Revolution of 1776. For support, equipment, pay and transportation of
two companies now in service as bridge guards on the State Road, $10,000.
This leaves $1,921,000.85, which, together with a special appropriation of
$100,000, was expended upon the Georgia army, and for other contingent
military purposes. It will be seen, however, by reference to the reports of
the Quartermaster-General and the Chief of Ordnance, that very consider-
able sums were expended for the purchase of horses, artillery, etc., which
were transferred to the Confederacy with the Georgia army, for which no
payment has been made to the State. These sums, with contingent military
expenditures, when deducted from the above mentioned sums will leave the
whole cost of the Georgia army of nearly 8,000 men, for nearly six months,
including pay, clothing, subsistence, transportation, and every other expense,
a little short of $2,000,000."
CHAPTER VIII.
GOVERXMENT OF GeORGIA IN RELATION" TO THE WaR.
This State is necessarily conspicuous in any full and
fair narrative of the achievements of Southern arms during
the war with the United States ; and while not feeling sum-
moned by any charges or implications against the gal-
lantry and heroism of her officers and soldiers, and not
desiring to give them undue or unjust prominence among
the forces so nobly representing other States of the Con-
federacy, where all achieved so much to perpetuate their
fame, ample justice is attempted in other parts of our
worit to the noble sons of Georgia. It is perhaps impos-
sible to set forth the number of troops the State had in
the service. In the belief of its truth I have stated that
she sent a larger number in proportion to white popula-
tion than any State north or south. This fact, if true, is
referred to, not to cast the remotest reflection upon any
Confederate State. For they all in view of the circum-
stances surrounding them performed their duty nobly
in furnishing troops, and the conduct of their citizen sol-
diers. But it is a part of the means at command of
repelling charges that have been made against the admin-
istration of the State, to the effect that it hindered and
impeded the Confederate government in the prosecution
of the war. Such a charge or implication aimed at her
Governor, and embracing her people who at the ballot
box, at the home precincts, and at the voting places in
GEORGIA IN RELATION TO THE WAR. 257
the army sustained him, calls for special notice, and
such is the purpose of this chapter.
As the sequel will disclose, there was conflict of judg-
ment between Governor Brown and President Davis, as
to the method of raisins^ forces in the State for the Confed-
erate service ; some of the troops were organized, the
officers commissioned, and the regiments turned over by
the State to the Confederacy. The government author-
ized men to raise regiments, legions, battalions, etc. As-
piring men organized companies of infantry, artillerj'',
cavalry, and with other denominations, and were received
into the Confederate service. . By acts of the Confederate
Congress the President received many organizations, and
by the enrolling and con^^cript officers, large numbers of
troops who were distributed among the commands of
this and other States. Some of the small commands were
organized with troops from other States.
Even during the war the matter of Georgia troops was
of such uncertainty of identification, as to their num-
ber and organizations, that the Governor, acting under the
authority of the Legislature, detailed the writer of this
treatise to make a roll of Georgia troops in the Confeder-
ate service. On arriving at Richmond, the demands on
the war department in June, 18C3, were such, in conse-
quence of army movements at that time, as to render the
mission impracticable. I was recalled and, disasters fol-
lowing rapidly, the matter was delayed and, on account of
the downfall of the Confederacy, was never undertaken
afterwards.
The regiments of the State organized before and after
the war began, under the State authority, and turned over
to the Confederacy, and those raised in the State by Con-
federate authority, the numerous battalions and companies
17
258 GOVEENMENT OF GEORGIA
aggregated and conscripts raised in the State and sent to
commands already in the field, and the troops employed in
the State service under the command of the Governor, and
used in the common defence, amounted to troops enough
for about one hundred average regiments. The State had
only a little upwards of 100,000 voters at a full election, and
a population of 683,000 whites, and 462,000 blacks at the
opening of the war. It is a truth to be noted that the
regiments raised and turned over by the Governor, and
those organized by Confederate authority in the State,
were generally full in numbers, and of the material that
compared favorably with the troops of other States. And
still more noteworthy is the fact which is beyond dispute,
that Georgia remained nearly to the last within Confed-
erate lines, and her soldiers did not in large numbers
retire to their homes, and that in the main her regiments
were kept fuller and better recruited than those from
some of the other States. It would be untrue to assume
that there were not Georgia stragglers and deserters, as
there were from all the States, in large numbers toward
the close of the war, when the morale of the army was
affected by the conquests and advances of the Union forces,
the defeats and disasters of ours, and the generally failing
fortunes of the Confederacy and loss of the grounds of
hope for final success, and the alienation of the feelings
of the people by the course of the Confederate Govern-
ment and her authorities, civil and military. But it is
true, in fact, that a larger proportion of her troops re-
mained at the front, and in line, than from several other
States, if not all of them.
It is not true, in fact, that the civil administration of
this State obstructed the Confederacy or hindered its
plans and enterprises, or its success, by any lack or with-
m EELATION TO THE WAR. 259
holding of her quota of the means of war, either in sol-
diers, quartermaster and commissariat stores, stock, pro-
visions, clothing, medical aid, lighting men, or ability in
military officers, or in the civil departments of the Con-
federate government.
If it were, on the other hand, asserted that the ruling
powers of the Confederacy, in the civil department, did
not obstruct, hinder, delay, and finally defeat the grand
purposes of the revolution, and necessitate the downfall
of the Confederacy, in part, by the measures and policy
wherein President Davis differed in judgment from Gov-
ernor Brown, and about which they had controversy dur-
ing the war, it would be to ask observing and thinking
people to overlook and disregard the direct relation be-
tween cause and effect — the alienation of the people in
part from the government ; the abatement of their ardor
in the cause of Southern independence by the manifest
discriminations and injustice of the Confederate govern-
ment, and its apparent disregard of the principles of con-
stitutional law, and of equality of rights — for the love of
which they had gone into the revolution.
On the other hand, with the advantages of a full retro-
spect, and a better knowledge of our own and the resources
of the government at war with us, and the feelings and
influences of foreign nations, it would be speculative to
argue that even if the views and policy of Governor Brown
had been adopted and carried out by Mr. Davis, we should
have achieved independence — as many of the most dis-
cerning people believe. Hence, we address ourself to the
task of faithfully and fairly presenting the facts and truths
of the matter between them.
President Davis and Governor Brown had been lifelong
Jeffersonian Democrats, and therefore State rights men.
260 GOVERNMENT OF GEORGIA
They had been, in all the controversies between national
and local parties, growing out of the subject of slavery,
ardent pro-slavery and southern rights Democrats ; and
both favored the measures and policy on the part of their
respective parties and States which led to withdrawal,
and the organization of the Confederate government, and
which invited or provoked the war, as the Federals under-
stood the question ; and both carried all their talents,
moral courage, energy and patriotism into the contest.
After the steps had been taken, and war had resulted,
both saw and comprehended its magnitude, its destructive
power, and the dangers to which the South was exposed ;
and both realized that their own, and the fortunes and
happiness of their people, depended upon the success of
the revolution. One was President of the Confederate
States ; the other. Governor of Georgia — a very important
member of the new union, in geographical position, re-
sources in men and money, and in the morale of the gov-
ernment resulting from the vast influence of her public
men over the people of the South. They were men of
stronor mind — self-confident and self-reliant, men of strono^
and decided convictions, and settled opinions after inves-
tigation ; and both were executive in talents, and decidedly
so in disposition ; with this difference between Brown and
Davis, and between him and all the public men of the
South — his mind acted with more rapidity and precision,
and he never grew tired or fagged ; and while he never
lacked for expedients, and his mind was ever fruitful of
plans, he never adhered to or followed them after their
failure was manifest ; but like Davis, until convinced of
mistake or error, he adhered firmly to his opinions. They
are alike endowed with firmness by nature, which has been
largely cultivated in practice.
IN RELATION TO THE WAE. 261
They differed in opinion, and therefore in practice, as
to the matters publicly controverted between them; and
co-operated wherein they agreed, both having the same
general purpose and aim — the political independence of
the Southern States, and the establishment of the new Con-
federacy. It cannot be shown that in any matter touch-
ing the war, that either offered opposition to the other,
except in the vital and important matters wherein they
differed in judgment; or, on the part of Governor Brown,
that he ever refused or neglected to co-operate with the
President, heartily; and aid in every way in his power, in
any and all matters wherein they agreed ; on the contrary,
he was in the constant habit, in public and private, to
friends and foes of the President, of vindicating and de-
fending his policy and action, wherein he agreed with
him.
The controversy was based on differences of opinion on
important principles, and on the part of Governor Brown
was made entirely public through the press of the South.
He stood on the correctness of his judgment; acted upon
the conclusions then drawn, as did the President ; and each
must abide the positions then chosen, in the calm judg-
ment of those who come after them.
The matters do not rest in vague human memory, but
in records that time has not changed.
Before presenting these controversies, we recur to the
action of Governor Brown at home, and of the State un-
der his lead and advice.
As seen heretofore, there was conflict between the Gov-
ernor and the State Legislature on numerous matters of
State policy relating to the civil administration, from the
time he came into office up to the time when war became
imminent. Then the spirit of the Governor was the
262 GOVERNMENT OF GEORGIA
spirit of the great people who leaped into solid column
under his lead, and sustained his action and seconded his
plans, in full confidence of his ability and wisdom as well
as patriotic devotion to their rights and happiness.
Under his advice, the General Assembly as before stated,
upon the call of a State convention and before the State
seceded, appropriated $1,000,000, and placed the same at
his disposal as a military fund ; and when that body called
a convention to be elected by the people to determine
what should be the course of the State, in view of the
triumph of the Republican party in the election of Mr.
Lincoln, the public confidence in Brown was so strong and
general that his opinions had, perhaps, more potency over
the Southern mind than any of our leaders. Men of the
Legislature, not before in sympathy with the Governor,
united with his ardent admirers and friends in calling out
his opinions of the situation, and his counsel and advice to
the people.
His letter in response, written with great zeal as well
as masterly ability, was extensively published throughout
the South, and exercised a very powerful influence on the
people of all the slaveholding States.
In the session of November, 1861, when the war had
progressed a few months, under his recommendation
$100,000 were placed at his disposal for State troops, and
$5,000,000 appropriated as a military fund for the public
defence.
In reply to all possible charges or implications of a want
of co-operation and support on the part of Georgia, I make
the following extract from the annual message of Gov-
ernor Brown, of 6th November, 1861; showing his ex-
traordinary promptness and energy in the first half-year
of the war : —
IN EELATION TO THE WAR. 263
" The Secretary of War has frequently made requisition upon me as the
Governor of this State for troops ; these I promptly furnished. Thirty
regiments and three battalions of State troops have gone into the service of
the Confederacy. Of this number twenty-one regiments and three battalions
have been armed, accoutred, and equipped by the State. We now have ac-
cepted and nearly all in the field of Slate troops, not in Confederate service,
seven regiments and three battalions, which, with the help of the country
arms in use, are being fully armed, equipped, and accoutred by the State.
We also have in service from Georgia ten regiments, which have been ac-
cepted by the President independent of State authority, making thirty-seven
regiments and six battalions of State troops, and ten regiments of independ-
ent or Confederate troops. Counting two battalions as a regiment, Geor-
gia has therefore in service fifty regiments, forty of State troops and ten
independent. Including a few countrj' arms, she has armed, accoutred, and
equipped thirty of these regiments."
And, as will appear, requisitions made after that time
were promptly responded to, and more than filled.
Under his recommendation the Legislature assumed the
payment of Georgia's part of the Confederate war tax,
and provided for raising and paying the same by the
State, thus keeping the vexatious and demoralizing tax
gatherer of the Confederacy from the doors of the people
then fully united and intent on the public defence. To
meet and remedy a most fearful evil in the rear of the
armies, acting under his advice the Legislature took the
lead of all the States by making large appropriations for
the relief and support of indigent families of Georgia
soldiers in the field ; and for the manufacture of salt
for the people, then apparently about to suffer generally
for its want, on account of Federal blockade ; and for the
aid and relief of our soldiers in the hospitals of the armies ;
and for the manufacture and distribution of cotton cards
among the women of the State to enable them to supply
clothing at home, and for their sons, husbands, and broth-
ers in the service ; for the manufacture of shoes for the
barefooted troops, and the supply of blankets and medi-
264 GOVEEKMENT OF GEORGIA
cine, and other necessaries to sustain them in the struggle ;
and for the manufacture of arms and ammunition, then a
matter of the most critical and pressing importance to the
Confederacy. We had fighting men in redundancy com-
pared with the hick of arms.
Brown was wiser and more sagacious, and therefore
a stronger stay and support to the Confederacy than the
other Southern governors, in adopting the policy of reserv-
ing the power and control of the State government, and
the means of preserving order and executing the laws of
the State, as well as other public emergencies that might
arise requiring prompt action to repel invasion from the
State. The Legislature, responding to his advice and rec-
ommendations, placed State troops and arms at his dis-
posal and the militia not engaged in Confederate service,
which he or2;anized in addition to the reg;iments and battal-
ions of State troops in active duty under his command,
and upon the pay of the State.
By this policy he was enabled to keep up the morale of
the State, preserve the respect and confidence of the peo-
ple at home and her soldiers in the field, to maintain the
control of the white over the black race, and keep the
latter in the fields to produce provision-supplies in lieu
of the white men who were bearing arms. He was thus
able to exercise the power and influence necessary to
meet and promptly respond to every requisition on this
State for the Confederate service in addition to the men
in arms in State service, aiding in the common cause and
enterprise of repelling the enemy and guarding the ap-
proaches to our common country.
While he protested against the conscript acts and pol-
icy, he did not oppose the enrolment of private soldiers
of the militia which did not break up its organization ;
IN EELATION TO THE WAR. 265
but refused to allow the officers enrolled and ordered
away ; refused to allow the State organization to be
broken up by conscripting her civil officers, as was done
in other States. He refused to yield the power of the
State of which he was Executive, for enforcing peace and
tranquillity at home, and for responding to the calls of the
Confederacy, lawfully made upon her ; and for this he was
censured — censured for a policy which, firmly as well as
wisely adhered to, rendered this State more efficient to
the last in upholding the Confederacy. In his first annual
message, after hostilities began, and when the issue of
battle had been accepted on both sides and was fiercely
maintained by Federals and Confederates, he concluded
his elaborate review of the situation as follows : —
" From the foregoing reflections, it naturally follows, that our whole social
system is one of perfect homogeneity of interest, where every class of society
is interested in sustaining the interest of every other class. We liave all the
harmonious elements necessary to the perpetuity of that republican and re-
ligious liberty bequeathed to us by our fathers ; with none of the distracting
and conflicting elements which must destroy both in the Northern States, and
which have already precipitated the country into a bloody revolution, and at-
tempted to hurl to the ground the fairest structure ever dedicated to liberty
on the face of the globe. To sustain this priceless heritage is the highest
earthly duty of the Christian and the patriot. Ruthless and bloody hands
have been laid upon it. To wrest it from them may cost hundreds of millions
of treasure, and many thousands of the most invaluable lives of the South.
But he who would stop to count the cost, would do well to ask himself. What
is my property worth when I am a slave ? or, What is my life worth, if by
saving it, I must transmit a heritage of bondage to my children? If we are
conquered, our property is confiscated, and we and our children are slaves to
Northern avarice and Northern insolence. Sooner than submit to this, I
would cheerfully expend in the cause the last dollar I could raise, and would
fervently pray, like Samson of old, that God would give me strength to lay
hold upon the pillars of the edifice, and would enable me while bending with
its weight, to die a glorious death beneath the crumbling ruins of that Tem-
ple of Southern freedom which has so long attracted the world by the splen-
dor of its magnificence."
2C6 " GOVERNMENT OF GEORGIA
And sucli was the ring of metal from his pen and
tongue in public and private, to the close of the struggle.
It abounds in all his messages and State papers, and
is* reflected in all his official action through the entire
war.
I have said his mind never tired, and his energies never
fagged ; it is literally true that he was a man of unre-
mitting toil, day and night, barely taking time for refresh-
ment and sleep. And nothing in his power or in the
range of his public duties was allowed to be neglected or
delayed.
He pressed upon the Legislature at every meeting the
claims of the Confederacy ; and constantly on the Confed-
erate authorities, high and low, the claims of Georgia and
the rights of her soldiers and people.
It is fresh in the memory of the writer, impressed there
by persistent and unremitting toil in his department, that
no claim, or appeal, or request to him, was allov>^ed to be
overlooked or neglected. The sick and wounded in the
distant hospitals, the illiterate and poor in the remotest
parts of the State, and often of other States, sent their
doleful complaints by thousands. They all had to be read
and promptly and satisfactorily answ^ered, as well as all
letters from officials and influential people. He performed
immense quantities of the reading and the labor of writ-
ing— in the midst of w^hichl came then to the conclusion,
which must have been erroneous, that he had the faculty
of giving minute and comprehensive attention to two
subjects precisely at the same moment of time. It arose
from having frequently applied to him at his table with
letters on new subjects — read them and asked for instruc-
tions when he was engaged in reading letters or actually
writing — and receiving immediate directions, showing
IN RELATION TO THE WAR. 267
tliat he had minutely noticed and comprehended every
point in what had been read to him.
The people and the soldiers, and especially their fam-
ilies at home, loved and almost worshipped " Joe Brown,"
as he was called, while the Confederate authorities clam-
ored for the supreme control, and the emasculation of the
power and influence by which he was enabled to render
them the greatest and most valuable aid and support.
And while he differed in judgment from President
Davis and his Cabinet and boldly made known his opin-
ions, he never relaxed his energies, or abated his zeal,
or changed his purposes of political independence for the
Confederacy, and never showed the white feather or the
slightest signs of yielding to the common foe as long as -
the Confederate Government had an army or civil organ-
ization or a purpose and aim to protract the struggle.
And when the contest was ended and the revolution
had proved to be a stupendous failure, he exercised, as we
shall see in the sequel, the same bold and fearless mind
and judgment in advance of his own people, indicating
the wisest and best course for a conquered people. But
it was by far easier to lead a patriotic and exasperated
people into war and guide their counsels amid its waste
and destruction than it proved to be to calm the passions
of a depleted, impoverished, subjugated, insulted, and op-
pressed constituency who had passed under the yoke and
for whom he no longer had the power to implead or en-
force respect and protection.
We recur to the matters of controversy between the
Confederate President and the Governor of Georgia.
The public policy of the President and Cabinet, and of
the Congress, is set forth in the following extract from
the annual message of Governor Brown, in which his ob-
268 GOVEKNMENT OF GEORGIA
jections, and the reasons therefor, are stated in the matter
of raising and organizing troops for the Confederate
armies : —
"The Constitution formed by the Convention, and since adopted by each
of the eleven Confederate States, is the old Constitution of the United
States amended and improved in such particulars as the experience of three
quarters of a century had shown to be necessary. Under this Constitution
the new government of the Confederate States is now in successful operation
and is maintaining itself with great ability both in the Cabinet and in the
field. The action of our Congress has been generally characterized by pru-
dence, wisdom and forethought. While I take much pleasure in making
this statement and in yielding to the new government my hearty and cordial
support, the candor, which I would exercise towards a friend, compels
me to say, that in my judgment, two important acts passed by our Congress
are hard to reconcile with the plain letter and spirit of the Constitution.
"The 16th item of the 8th section of the 1st article of the Constitution of
the Confederate States is in these words: ' Congress shall have power ' 'to
provide for organizing, arming and disciplining the militia, and for govern-
ing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the Confederate
States, reserving to the States respectively the appointment of the officers and
the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by
Congress.' The first section of the act of the Congress of the Confederate
States, approved May 8, 1861, authorizes the President to accept the services
of volunteers who may ofi'er their services without regard to the place of
enlistment. The second section of the act is in these words : —
" ' That the volunteers so offering their services may be accepted by the
President in companies to be organized by him into squadrons, battalions, or
regiments. The President shall appoint all field and staff officers, but the
company officers shall be elected by the men composing the company ; and
if accepted, the officers so elected shall be commissioned by the President.'
"The first section of the act approved May 11, 1861, is in these words: —
" ' That the President be authorized to receive into service such companies,
battalions, or regiments, either mounted or on foot, as may tender themselves
and he may require, without the delay of a formal call upon the respective States,
to serve for such term as he may prescribe.'
" And part of the third section of said act is in these words : —
" ' The President shall be authorized to commission all officers entitled to com-
missions of such volunteer forces as may be received under the provisions of
this act.'
" The language of our Constitution is the same that is used in the Constitu-
tion of the United States, and it is believed that the term militia, as there
used when applied to troops, was always understood to be in contradistinc-
IN EELATIOi^ TO THE WAR. 269
tion to the term regular. The Constitution gives to Congress the jiower to
'raise and support armies.' Under this authority our regular army is en-
listed and its officers are appointed by the government under whose authority
it is raised. In this case there is no restraint upon tlie power of Congress,
and it may therefore confer upon the President the power to appoint all the
officers. In the case of the militia, which term includes volunteers and
other military forces not embraced in the regular army, the same unrestrained
power is not granted. While the States have delegated to Congress the
power of organizing, arming and disciplining the militia, and of governing
such part of them as may be employed in the service of the Confederacy, they
have expressly reserved to themselves the appvinlment of the officers, and have
therefore expressly denied to Congress the right to confer that power on the
President or any other person. Notwithstanding the express reservation by the
States of this power, the acts above referred to, authorize the President to
accept the volunteer militia of the States independently of State authority
and to commission every officer of a regiment from a third lieutenant to a
colonel. This act, by vesting in the President the po#er of appointing the
officers of the militia, which power the States have carefully and expressly
reserved to themselves, enables him to control, independent of State author-
ity the wiiole consolidated military force of the Confederacy, including the
militia as well as the regulars. If this practice is acquiesced in, the Confed-
ei-ate government, which has the control of the purse with the power to tax the
people of the States to any extent at its pleasure, also acquires the supreme
control of the military force of the States, and with both the sword and the
purse in its own hands may become the uncontrollable master instead of the
useful servant of the States.
" I am not aware of any case in which the government of the United
States prior to its disruption ever claimed or exei'cised the power to accept
volunteer troops, commission their officers and order them into service, with-
out consulting the Executive authority of the State from which they were
received. The idea does not seem ever to have occurred to President Lin-
coln, so long as he held himself bound by any constitutional restraints,
that he had any power to accept troops from the border States to assist in
coercing us into obedience without the prior consent of the Executives of
those States. Hence he made his call upon them for troops and met a repulse
that turned the tide of popular sentiment in our favor in most of those
States and redounded greatly to the salvation of the South. During the
war of 1812, when Massachusetts refused to send her troops out of the State,
the plea of necessity might have been set up by Mr. Madison as a justification
to some extent for such an encroachment, but neither he, who had partici-
pated so largely in the formation of the Constitution, nor the Congress in
that day seemed to have felt justified even by necessity in adopting any such
measure. In the present instance, the plea of necessity could not be set up,
as it will not be pretended that the Executive of any State in the Confeder-
270 GOVERNMENT OF GEORGIA
acy had refused to respond promptly to each and every call made upon him
for troops. Even now, I believe it may be truly said, that the number re-
quired in each and every case of each and every Executive has been promptly
furnished.
" These acts have also been very inconvenient in practice.
** * * * * **
" On several occasions, after I have put companies under orders for the pur-
pose of filling requisitions made upon me, I have learned that these compa-
nies had previously left the State without my knowledge, which caused delay
growing out of the necessity of ordering in other companies to fill their places.
So long as there are two recognized mihtary heads in the State, each having
the power to order out the militia without informing the other of the compa-
nies ordered by him, conflict and confusion must be the inevitable result.
Again, as these independent regiments receive their commissions from the
President, and leave the State without official notice to the Executive, there
is no record in Georgia which gives the names of the officers or privates or
shows that they are in service from the State. The only knowledge which
the Executive has of their being in service is such as he derives from the
newspapers or other channels of information common to any private citizen
of the State.
" But I fear that these acts may, in the end, entail upon us or our posterity
a greater misfortune than the mere practical confusion and inconvenience
growing out of them. As I have before remarked, they give to the President
the control of the militia of the States and the appointment of the officers to
command them, without the consent of the States. This is an imperial
power, which in the hands of an able, fearless popular leader, if backed by a
subservient Congress in the exercise of its taxing power, would enable him
to trample under foot all restraints and make his will the supreme law of the
land. It may be said in reply to this, that the acts only give the President
the power to accept the services of such of the militia of the States as volun-
teer to serve him. This is true. But we cannot shut our eyes to the fact,
that in times of high political excitement, when the people are divided into
parties, a fearless favorite leader having this power, and in possession of all
the pubhc arms, munitions of w^ar, forts, arsenals, dockyards, &c., belonging
to the government, might be able to rally around him such force as would
give him a fearful advantage over those who might attempt to prevent the
accomplishment of his designs. Such is my confidence in the present able
Executive of the Confederate States, and so thoroughly am I convinced of
his lofty patriotism and his purity of purpose, that I entertain but little fear
that he would abuse even absolute power or subvert the liberties of his coun-
try for his own personal aggrandizement. This is no reason, however, why I
should consent to see absolute power placed in his hands. While I might
not fear him as a dictator, I would never consent that he be made dictator.
Hia term of office is limited by the Constitution and must expire with his
IN RELATION TO THE WAR. 271
new term at the end of six years. Hia immediate successor, or some future
Napoleon, occupying the same position, may be less pure and patriotic, and
with the precedent established and approved by the people, placing this vast
military power in his hands, he may make the presidency a stepping stone for
the gratification of his unholy ambition, and by the use of the military at his
command, may assume the imperial robes and seat himself upon a throne.
" To guard effectually against usurpation, sustain republican liberty and pre-
vent the consolidation of the power and sovereignty of the States in the hands
of the few, our people should watch, with a jealous eye, every act of their rep-
resentatives tending to such a result, and condemn in the most unqualified
manner every encroachment made by the general government upon either the
rights or the sovereignty of the States."
The Governor also differed from the Confederate Pres-
ident on the subject of the right of Georgia troops to
elect officers. His views and those of the government
are well stated in the following extract from the annual
message of November 5, 1863 : —
" In this connection I earnestly invite the attention of the General Assem-
bly to the correspondence (copies of which are herewith forwarded) between
the Secretary of War and myself in reference to the right of Georgia's vol-
unteer militia in the military service of the Confederacy to elect their own
officers. And it is proper that I here remark that since the correspondence
was ended, even the right of the home guards to elect to fill vacancies is
also denied, and the power of appointing the company officers as well as the
field officers is claimed by the President.
" The Constitution gives Congress power to provide for organizing, arming,
and disciplining the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be
employed in the service of the Confederate States, reserving to the States respect-
ively the appointment of the officers. The right of the State to appoint the of-
ficers to command her militia or any part thereof, when employed in the ser-
vice of the Confederate States, is not left to inference,but is reserved in plain,
simple language, which admits of no two constructions. The State, by her
constitution and laws, has provided how she will make these appointments.
All militia officers are to be elected by the people subject to do military duty
under them, and the officers of the volunteer militia are to be elected by the
members of the volunteer organization, to be commanded by the officers when
elected, and all vacancies are to be filled in the same way. In a word, the
State appoints those who are elected by the persons to be commanded.
" If the militia of Georgia, or any part thereof, is now employed in the ser-
vice of the Confederate States, no one can question the right of the State, as
reserved in the Confederate constitution, to appoint the officers to command
272 GOVEENMENT OF GEORGIA
them, and the right of the troops, under the constitution and laws of the State,
to have those elected by them appointed or commissioned to command them,
is equally unquestionable.
"By the militia of a State, I understand the framers of the constitution to
have meant the arms-bearing people of the State. That they intended to use
the term in this sense is evident from the fact that they speak of the militia
as in existence at the time they are making the constitution, and confer
power upon Congress, not to create a new militia, nor to organize that al-
ready in existence, but to provide for organizing the militia. In other words,
they gave Congress power to provide for forming into militia organizations
the arms-bearing people of the respective States. Had the constitution given
Congress power to organize the militia without any qualifying words, it
would have had power to appoint officers to command them, or to authorize
the President to appoint them, as the militia cannot be organized without of-
ficers. The language used was w^ell weighed and carefully guarded. Power
was fifivea to Congress to provide for organizing that already in existence with-
out sufficient organization — the militia or arms-bearing people of the States.
"When Congress has provided for the organization, and the States have or-
ganized the militia, Congress may authorize the President to employ them in
the service of the Confederate States, but, in that case, the States expressly
reserve to themselves the right to appoint the officers to command them, and
Congress cannot, without usurpation, exercise that power or confer it upon
the President.
" The President has made repeated calls upon this State for organized
bodies of her troops for Confederate service, and his requisitions have invari-
ably been filled by the tender of militia organized and officered by the State,
and they have been accepted by him with their officers as organized. In addi-
tion to this, the conscript act has been passed, which has made all persons be-
tw^een 18 and 4-5, (except those exempted by the act.) subject by compulsion to
Confederate service. This act has been executed in Georgia. In contem-
plation of law, every person in this State between 18 and 45, not specially
exempt, is now in Confederate service ; and the fact corresponds very nearly
with this contemplation of law. Thus the whole organized militia of the State
is now employed in the service of the Confederate States ; and notwithstanding
the State in such case has expressly reserved the right to appoint every officer to
command them, her right to appoint a single officer to fill a single vacancy in_a
single company, battalion or regiment, is now denied ; and it is claimed that
they are all in future to be appointed, not by the State, but by the President.
"One of the reasons given for this extraordinary pretension is, that it will
not do to trust the troops after they are in service with this important
right of choosing their own officers, as they would not elect officers who are
faithful and who maintain discipline and do their duty. This objection
would certainly apply with equal force to tlie first election, when a regiment
or company is being organized. If the men are competent on entering the
IN RELATION TO THE WAR. 273
service to elect those who shall command them, why are they not equally
competent to elt^ct to fill vacancies which afterward occur? Do experience
in the military fluid, and intimate acquaintance with their comrades in arms,
make them less conq:)eteut to judge of the qualifications of those who aspire
to command? The simple statement of the proposition is a sufficient expose
of its fallacy. At the organization of our regiments, the men elected officers
on short acquaintance, as but little time was allowed them ; and doubtless
made some mi.-takes, putting in men less competent than some others left
out. They have since seen them tried in service, and now know who is
best qualified. But when a vacancy occurs, they are now to be confined to those
who were first elected to lower positions, to fill the higher positions, to which
they never chose them. And if an officer who claims promotion is set aside
for incompetency by an examining board, the next in rank may step for-
ward and claim the place, and is held to be entitled to it over the best man
in the regiment if he is a private, though he may be the choice of every man
in the command. It is only the lowest commissioned officer in the conqiany
who is taken from the ranks; and if the best and most competent man tailed
to get a commission at the first election, he cannot now aspire from the
ranks to a higher position than the lowest lieutenancy. Tliis policy of till-
ing all vacancies by promotion not only disregards the constitutional rights
of the States, but it does the grossest injustice to those who are often the
most deserving of promotion, and denies to the men the valuable right of
selecting their own rulers.
" If it is said the President may go out of the regular line of promotion,
and reward merit in the ranks, it may be truly replied that this is seldom
done ; and that the men cannot look to their companions in arms, but can
look only to the President for promotion. This not only concentrates all
power in his hands, but subjects every man's claims to his favoritism,
prejudice, or caprice; and destroj's independence of thought and of action by
compelling all to depend for promotion upon tlieir capacity to flatter or their
ability to please a single individual. Georgia's troops have done their duty
nobly in the field, and they have a right to look to the government of their
State for the protection of their rights. Many of them now claim this pro-
tection. Shall they have it? '
" I recommend that this General Assembly pass a joint resolution declara-
tory of the reserved rights of the State, and of the constitutional right of
election by her troops, and demanding of the Confederate Government the
recognition of this right."
Next to the conscription laws and the provision for
exempting slaveholders, perhaps nothing done by the
Congress of the Confederacy had so damaging effect as
the law allowing
18
274 GOVERNMENT OF GEORGIA
Substitutes in the Army.
Governor Brown's opposition to that law, and the prac-
tice of government and army officers, is strongly set forth
in his message to the Legislature, as follows :
"That portion of the conscript act which authorizes those within conscript
age to employ substitutes, has, in my opinion, been productive of the most
unfortunate results. If conscription is right, or if it is to be acquiesced in
as a matter of necessity, it is certainly just that it act upon all alike, whether
rich or poor. With the substitution principle in the act, its effect has been
to compel the poorer class, who have no money with which to employ substi-
tutes, to enter the army, no matter what may be the condition of their fami-
lies at home, while the rich, who have money with which to employ
substitutes, have often escaped compulsory service. This is not just as
between man and man. While I trust I have shown that the poorest man
in the Confederacy has such interest at stake as should stimulate him to en-
dure any amount of hardship or danger for the success of our cause, it can-
not be denied that the wealthy are under as great obligation to do service, as
they have, in addition to the rights and liberties of themselves and their
children, a large amount of property to protect. If every wealthy man
would do his duty, and share his part of the dangers of the war, but few
complaints would be heard from the poor. But if the money of the rich is
to continue to secure him from the hardships, privations, and dangers, to
which the poor are exposed, discontent, and more or less demoralization in
the army must be the inevitable result.
" He who has paid two or three thousand dollars for his substitute has
often made it back in a single month by speculation, and it has not
unfrequently happened that the families of those in service, at eleven dol-
lars per month, have been the most unfortunate victims of his speculation
and extortion.
" A very large number of stout, able-bodied young men, between 18
and 45 years of age, are now out of the army, and in their places the gov-
ernment has accepted old men over 45, who have, in most cases, been unable
to undergo long marches, privation, and fatigue. Thousands of these have
sunk by the way, either into the hospitals or into the grave. It is also
understood that much the larger number of deserters and stragglers from the
army have been substitutes who have entered it for hire, and, after receiving
the stipulated price, have sought the first opportunity to escape, which they
have in some instances been permitted to do, with the acquiescence and en-
couragement of officers who have been their partners in guilty speculation.
Thus the same individual has been accepted as a substitute for each of sev-
eral able-bodied young men, who have been left at home to seek for gain and
IN RELATION TO THE WAR. 275
enjoy comfort, while our enemies have gained advantages on account of the
weakness of our armies.
" If we expect to be successful in our struggle, the law must be so
changed as to place in service the tens of thousands of young men who are
now at home. This would reinforce our armies, so as to enable us to drive
back the enemy upon every part of our borders. After this change in the
law the government could provide for the protection of the most important
interests at home, by making proper details of such persons as are indis-
pensably necessary. This would be much better than the extension of the
conscription act up to 50 or 55, as it would bring into the field young men
able to endure service, in place of old men who must soon fail when exposed to
great fatigue and hardship, many of whom are as competent as young men
to oversee plantations and attend to other home interests.
"But it may be denied that the Government can now so change the law as
to make those who have furnished substitutes liable to service, as it is bound
by its contract to exempt them, and they have acquired vested rights under
the contract, which it is not in the power of the Government to divest. Let
us examine this for a moment. I purchase a lot of land from the State of
Georgia, and pay her one thousand dollars for it, and she conveys it to me
by grant under her great seal. The contract is as solemn, and binding, as the
Government can make it. My fee simple title is vested and complete. But
while I have the grant in my pocket and the State has my money in her
treasury, it is discovered that public necessity requires the State to repossess
herself of the land ; I refuse to sell to her ; she may pay me just compensation,
and take the land without my consent, and she violates no fundamental princi-
ple, as all our private rights must yield to the public good, and if we are injured
we can only require just compensation for the injury.
" Again, suppose I have labored hard and made upon my land a surplus of
provisions, which are my own right and property, and I refuse to sell them to
the Government, when the army is in need of them ; it may take them with-
out my consent and pay me just compensation, and I have been deprived of
none of my constitutional rights.
" The right of a person who has employed a substitute, to be exempt
from military service, can certainly stand upon no higher ground. The Gov-
ernment has extended to such persons the privilege of exemption upon the
employment of a proper substitute, but if the public safety requires it, the
Government certainly has as much right to revoke this privilege as it has to
take from me my land, or my provisions, or other property, for public use ;
and all the person who employed the substitute could demand would be just
compensation for the injury. The measure of damages might be the amount
paid by the principal for his substitute, less a just pro rata for the time the
substitute has served; and upon the payment of the damage or the just com-
pensation for it, the Government would have the right to retain the substi-
tute, as well as the principal, in service, as the substitute has been paid by
276 GOVERNMENT IN RELATION TO THE WAR.
the principal for the service, and the principal has been compensated for the
damage done him by ordering him into service. It would be competent,
however, in estimating the damages in such case, to take into the account,
the interest the principal has in the success of our cause, and the establish-
ment of our independence, as necessary to the perpetuity of his liberties, and
the security of all his rights. It would also be competent to inquire whether
he has indeed suffered any pecuniary loss. If he has paid three thousand
dollars for a substitute, and has been kept out of the army for that sum for
one year, and during that time he has made ten thousand dollars more, by
speculation, or otherwise, than he would have made had he been in the army
at eleven dollars per month, the actual amount of compensation due from tlie
Government to him might be very small indeed, if anything.
" Believing that the public necessity requires it, and entertaining no doubt
that Congress possesses the power to remedy the evil, without violating vested
rights, I respectfully recommend the passage of a joint resolution by this
General Assembly, requesthig Congress to repeal that part of the conscript
act which authorizes the employment of substitutes, and, as conscription is
the present policy of the Government, to require all persons able to do mili-
tary duty, who have substitutes in service, to enter the military service of
the Confederacy with the least possible delay, and to provide some just rule
of compensation to those who may be injured by the enactment of such a
law. I also recommend that said resolution instruct our Senators, and re-
quest our Representatives in Congress, to vote for and urge the passage of
this measure at the earliest possible day."
CHAPTER IX.
Governor Brown and the Confederate Military.
Governor Brown took strong and decided ground
against the practices of the Confederate military of indis-
criminate seizure and impressment of private property, as
follows: —
IMPRESSMENT OF PRIVATE PROPERTY.
" It is also my duty to call your attention to another matter considered by
the people of this State a subject of grievance. The power is now claimed by
almost every military commander to impress the private property of the citi-
zen at his pleasure, without any express order from the Secretary of War for
that purpose ; and in many cases without the payment of any compensation
— the officer, who is in some cases only a captain or lieutenant, giving a
certificate that the property has been taken for public use; which seizure,
after long delay, may, or may not, be recognized by the Government; as
it may determine that the officer had, or had not, competent authority to
make it.
"I am aware that the Constitution confers the power upon the Confederate
Government to take private property for public use, paying therefor just com-
pensation ; and I have no doubt that every true and loyal citizen would
cheerfully acquiesce in the exercise of this power, by the properly authorized
and responsible agents of the Government, at all times when the public ne-
cessities might require it. But I deny that every subaltern in uniform who
passes through the country has the right to appropriate what he pleases of
the property of the citizen without being able to show the authority of the
Government for the exercise of this high prerogative. As our people are not
aware of their proper remedies for the redress of the grievances hereinbefore
mentioned, I respectfully suggest, that the General Assembly, after consid-
eration of these questions, declare by resolution or otherwise, their opinion
as to the power of the Confederate Government and its officers in these par-
ticulars. I also respectfully request that the General Assembly declare the
extent to which the Executive of this. State will be sustained by the repre-
sentatives of the people in protecting their rights, and the integrity of the
Government, and sovereignty of the State, against the usurpations and abuses
to which I have invited your attention."
278 GOVERNOR BROWN
One of the potent causes of irritation among the poor
men of the Confederate armies, and which was a fruitful
and growing cause of discontent, was the small price paid
to soldiers in actual service after the depreciation of the
Confederate currency They began to compare their sit-
uation with the exempts and favored people at home, and
to think of the insignificant purchasing power of the gov-
ernment currency ; for instance, that a soldier's wages for
a month w^ould not buy a bushel of salt for his family or
a decent pair of shoes for his wife. They began to mur-
mur and complain, and to deluge the Governor of Georgia,
w^hom they from the first regarded as a true friend, ever
ready to aid them in all methods in his power. He made
the effort in vain, through the Legislature, to induce Con-
gress to stimulate and conciliate the army by an increase
of the pay of soldiers.
The following pointed message upon that subject shows
some, at least, of the pow^erfuUy working causes of the ul-
timate downfall of the Confederacy, and constitutes a vital
part of the history of the struggle.
EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, }
MiLLEDGEViLLE, April 6th, 1863. )
" To the General Asxemhly: —
"The armies of the Confederate States are composed, in a great degree, of
poor men and non-slaveholders, who have but little property at stake upon
the issue. The rights and liberties of themselves and of their posterity are,
however, involved; and with hearts full of patriotism, they have nobly and
promptly i-esponded to their country's call, and now stand a living fortifica-
tion between their homes and the armed legions of tlie Abolition Government.
Upon their labor their families at home have depended for support, as the}-
have no slaves to work for them. They receive from the Government but
eleven dollars per month, in depreciated currency, which, at the present high
prices, will purchase very little of the necessaries of life. The consequence
is, that tlie wives of thousands of them are now obliged to work daily in the
field to make bread — much of the time without shoes to their feet, or even
comfortable clothes for themselves or their little children. Many are living
AND THE CONFEDERATE MILITARY. 279
upon bread alone, and feel the most painful apprehensions lest the time may
come when enough even of this cannot be afforded them. In the midst of
all the privations and sufferings of themselves and their families, the loyalty
of those brave men to the Government cannot be questioned, and their gal-
lantry shines more conspicuously upon each successive battle field. Freemen
have never, in any age of the world, made greater sacrifices in freedom's
cause, or deserved more of their country or of posterity.
" While the poor have made and are still making these sacrifices, and sub-
mitting to these privations to sustain our noble cause and transmit the rich
blessings of civil and religious liberty and national independence to posterity,
many of the rich have freely given up their property, endured the hardships
and privations of military service, and died gallantly upon the battle field.
It must be admitted, however, that a large proportion of the wealthy class of
people have avoided the fevers of the camp and the dangers of the battle field,
and have remained at home in comparative ease and comfort with their
families.
" If the enrolling oflBcer under the conscript act has summoned them to
camp, they have claimed exemption to control their slaves, or they have re-
sponded with their money, and hired poor men to take their places as sub-
stitutes. The operation of this act has been grossly unjust and unequal
between the two classes. When the poor man is ordered to camp by the
enroihng officer, he has no money with which to employ a substitute, and he
is compelled to leave all the endearments of home and go. The money of
the rich protects them. If the substitution principle had not been recognized,
and the act had compelled the rich and the poor to serve ahke, it would have
been much more just.
" Again, there is a class of rich speculators who remain at home preying
like vultures upon the vitals of society, determined to make money at every
hazard, who turn a deaf ear to the cries of soldiers' families, and are pre-
pared to immolate even our armies and sacrifice our liberties upon the altar
of mammon. If laws are passed against extortion, they find means of evad-
ing them. If the necessaries of life can be monopolized and sold to the poor
at famine prices, they are ready to engage in it. If contributions are asked
to clothe the naked soldier or feed his hungry children, they close their
purses and turn away. Neither the dictates of humanity, the love of coun-
try, the laws of man, nor the fear of God, seem to control or influence their
actions. To make money and accumulate wealth is their highest ambition,
and seems to be the only object of their lives. The pockets of these men
can be reached in but one way, and that is by the tax gatherer ; and, as
they grow rich upon the calamities of the country, it is the duty of patriotic
statesmen and legislators to see that this is done, and that the burdens of
the war are, at least to some extent, equalized in this way. They should be
compelled to divide their ill-gotten gains with the soldiers who fight onr bat-
tles; both they and the wealthy of the country, not engaged as they are,
280 GOVERNOR BROWN
should be taxed to contribute to the wants of the families of those who sacri-
fice all to protect our lives, our liberties and our property.
"I consider it but an act of simple justice, for the reasons already stated,
that the wages of our private soldiers be raised to twenty dollars per month,
and that of non-commissioned officers in like proportion, and that the wealth
of the country be taxed to raise the money. I th'Tefore recommend the
passage of a joint resolution by the Legislature of this State, requesting our
Senators and Representatives in Congress to bring this question before that
body, and to do all they can, both by their influence and their vote, to secure
the passage of an act for that purpose, and to assess a tax sufficient to raise
the money to pay the increased sum. This would enable each soldier to do
soraetliing to contribute to the comfort of his family while he is fighting the
battles of his country at the expense of his comfort and the hazard of his
life.
" I respectfully but earnestly urge upon you the justice and importance of
favorable consideration and prompt action upon this reconnnendation.
" Let the hearts of our suffering soldiers from Georgia be cheered by the
intelligence that the Legislature of their State has determined to see that
justice is done them, and that the wants of themselves and their families are
supplied, and their arms will be nerved with new vigor when uplilted to
strike for the graves of their sires, the homes of their families, the liberties
of their posterity, and the independence and glory of the Republic.
"Joseph E. Brown."
The Legislature, by joint resolution, promptly united
with the Governor in the justice and importance of the
matter, and appealed in vain to the Confederate Congress
to adopt it.
The efforts to increase the pay of soldiers was met by
the Government with the presentation of the reai^on that
it was ruinous to increase their pay, because the currency
was already depreciated, and the depreciation would be
increased with the increase of its volume thus to be ren-
dered necessary. The troops in the army could not ap-
preciate the reason while they could see it violated by the
Government through its agents in every expenditure, ex-
cept that of paying the soldiers in service. Agents were
advancing prices rapidly for all government supplies, and
competitors in market with ready government cash for
AND THE CONFEDERATE MILITARY. 281
all the necessaries of life ; in many instances the agents
and officers buying on speculation and selling to the Gov-
ernment at large and fabulous profits. The soldiers could
see that the expansion was rapid ; that the prices advanced
by Government officers and agents, in order to carry on
their speculations, excluded their families from the mar-
kets at any lower rates. They therefore could not see
the justice of the Government that kept them in service,
whether they were willing or not under the conscript sys-
tem, and refused to increase their pay. There were thou-
sands of men in the service who did not regard the matter,
and would have remained voluntarily in service without
any pay at all. But the effect was very injurious upon
thousands of others who desired the money for their
families at home.
Suspension of the Habeas Corpus.
From an early period of the Avar, the Governor pro-
tested in strong terms against the assumed and unauthor-
ized authority of military commanders to declare martial
law and place such portions of country or places as they
desired to have absolute control of under military govern-
ment, and to suspend civil authority and the processes of
civil law.
On the 10th of March, 1864, he communicated his views
on the subject as follows : —
" I cannot withhold the expression of the deep mortification I feel at the
late action of Congress in attempting to suspend the privilege of the writ of
habeas corpus, and to confer upon the President powers expressly denied to
him by the Constitution of the Confederate States. Under pretext of a ne-
cessity which our whole people know does not exist in this case, whatever may
have been the motives, our Congress with the assent and at the request of
the executive has struck a fell blow at the liberties of the people of these
States.
"The Constitution of the Confederate States declares that, ' The privilege
of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended unless when in cases of
282 GOVERNOR BROWN
rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.' The power to sus-
pend the habeas corpus at all is derived, not from express and direct delega-
tion, but from implication only, and an implication can never be raised in
opposition to an express restriction. In case of any conflict between the
two, an implied power must always yield to express restrictions upon its
exercise. The power to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus
derived by implication must therefore be always limited by the express
declaration in the Constitution that : —
" ' The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and
effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated ; and
no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirma-
tion, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or
things to be seized,' and the further declaration that, ' no person shall be de-
prived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.' And that,
"'In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right of a speedy
and public trial by an impartial jury of the State or district where the crime
shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascer-
tained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation ;
to be confronted with the witnesses against him ; to have compulsory pro-
cess for obtaining witnesses in his favor; and to have the assistance of
counsel in his defence.'
"Thus it is an express guaranty of the Constitution that the 'persons' of
the people shall be secure, and ' no warrants shall issue,' but upon probable
cause, supported by ' oath or affirmation,' particularly describing ' the persons
to be seized ; ' that ' no person shall be deprived of liberty, without due pro-
cess of law,' and that in ' all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy
the right of a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury.'
" The Constitution also defines the powers of the Executive, which are lim-
ited to those delegated, among which there is no one authorizing him to issue
warrants or order arrests of persons not in actual military service ; or to sit as
a judge in any case, to try any person for a criminal offence, or to appoint
any court or tribunal to do it not provided for in the Constitution as part of
the judiciary. The power to issue warrants and try persons under criminal
accusations are judicial powers which belong, under the Constitution, exclu-
sively to the judiciary and not to the Executive. His power to order arrests
as commander-in-chief is strictly a military power, and is confined to the
arrest of persons subject to military power, as to the arrest of persons in the
army or navy of the Confederate States; or in the militia, when in the actual
service of the Confederate States ; and does not extend to any persons
in civil life unless they be followers of the camp or within the lines of the
army. This is clear from that provision of the Constitution which declares
that : —
" ' No person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime
unless on a, presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising
AND THE CONFEDERATE MILITAEY. 283
in the land or naval forces, or in the militia when in actual service in time of
war or public danger.' But even here the power of the President as com-
mander-in-chief is not absolute, as his powers and duties in ordering arrests
of persons in the laud or naval forces, or in the militia when in actual service,
are clearly defined by the rules and ai'ticles of war prescribed by Congress.
Any icarrant issued by the President, or any arrest made by him, or under his
order, of any person in civil life and not subject to military command, is ille-
gal and in plain violation of the Constitution ; as it is impossible for Congress
by implication to confer upon the President the right to exercise powers of
arrest expressly forbidden to him by the Constitution. Any effort on the
part of Congress to do this is but an attempt to revive the odious practice of
ordering political arrests, or issuing letters de cachet by royal prerogative, so
long since renounced by our English ancestors ; and the denial of the right
of the constitutional judiciary to investigate such cases, and the provision for
creating a court appointed by the Executive, and changeable at his will, to
take jurisdiction of the same, are in violation of the great principles of
Magna Charta, the Bill of Rights, the Habeas Corpus Act, and the Constitu-
tion of the Confederate States, upon which both English and American liberty
rest ; and are but an attempt to revive the odious Star Chamber court of
England, which, in the hands of wicked kings, was used for tyrannical pur-
poses by the crown, until it was finally abolished by Act of Parliament, of
16th Charles the First, which went into operation on the first of August,
1641. This Act has ever since been regarded as one of the great bulwarks
of English liberty ; and, as it was passed by the English Parliament to secure
our English ancestors against the very same character of arbitrary arrests
which the late Act of Congress is intended to authorize the President to
make, I append a copy of it to this message, with the same italics and small
capital letters which are used in the printed copy in the book from whicli it
is taken. It will be seen that the court of ' Star Chamber,' which was the
instrument in the hands of the English king, for investigating his illegal
arrests and carrying out his arbitrary decrees was much more respectable, on
account of the character, learning, and ability of its members, than the Con-
federate Star Chamber, or court of 'proper officers,' which the Act of Con-
gress gives the President power to appoint to investigate his illegal arrests.
I am aware of no instance in which the British king has ordered the arrest
of any person in civil life in any other manner than by judicial warrant is-
sued by the established courts of tiie realm; or in which he has suspended,
or attempted to suspend, the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus since the
Bill of Rights and act of settlement passed in 1669. To attempt this in 1861
would cost the present reigning Queen no less price than her crown.
"The only suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpun, known
to our Constitution, and compatible with the provisions already stated, goes
to the simple extent of preventing the release under it of persons whose ar-
rests have been ordered under constitutional warrants from judicial authority.
284 GOVERNOR brown-
To this extent the Constitation allows the suspension in case of rebellion or
invasion in order that the accused may be certainly and safely held for trial;
but Consrress has no right under pretext of exercising this power to author-
ize the President to make illegal arrests prohibited by the Constitution ; and
when Congress has attempted to confer such powers on the President, if he
should order such illegal arrests it would be the imperative duty of the
judges, who have solemnly sworn to support the Constitution, to disregard
such unconstitutional legislation and grant relief to persons so illegally im-
prisoned ; and it would be the duty of the legislative and executive depart-
ments of the States to sustain and protect the judiciary in the discharge of
this obligation.
" By an examination of the act of Congress, now under consideration, it
will be seen that it is not an act to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas
corpus in case of warrants issued hj JwHcial authority; but the main purpose
of the act seems to be to authorize the President to issue warrants supported
by neither oath nor affirmation and to make arrests of persons not in military
service, upon charges of a nature proper for investigation in the judicial tri-
bunals only, and to prevent the Courts from inquiring into such arrests, or
granting relief against such illegal usurpations of power, which are in direct
and palpable violation of the Constitution.
"The act enumerates more than twenty different causes of arrest, most of
which are cognizable and triable only in the judicial tribunals established
by the Constitution ; and for which no warrants can legally issue for the arrest
of persons in civil life by any power except the judiciary; and then only
upon probable cause supported by oath or affirmation particularly describing
the persons to be seized ; such as ' treason ' ' treasonable efforts or combina-
tions to subvert the Government of the Confederate States,' 'conspiracies
to overthrow the Government,' or ' conspiracies to resist the lawful authority
of the Confederate States,' giving the enemy ' aid and comfort,' ' attempts
to incite servile insurrection,' 'the burning of bridges,' ' railroad,' or 'tel-
egraph lines,' ' harboring deserters,' and ' other offences against the laws of
the Confederate States,' &c., &c. And as if to place the usurpation of power
beyond doubt or cavil, the act expressly declares that the ' suspension shall
apply only to the case of persons arrested or detained by the President, the Sec-
retary of War, or the general officer commanding the Trans-Mississippi Mil-
itary Department, by authority and under the control of the President,' in the
cases enumerated in the act, most of which are exclusively of judicial cogni-
zance, and in which cases the President has not the shadow of constitutional
authority to issue warrants or order arrests, but is actually prohibited by the
Constitution from doing so.
" This then is not an act to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas
cor/nis in the manner authorized by implication by the Constitution; but it
is an act to authorize the President to make illegal and unconstitutional arrests
in cases which the Constitution gives to the judiciary, and denies to the Ex-
AND THE CONFEDERATE MILITARY. 285
ecutive ; and to prohibit all judicial interference for the relief of the citizen,
when tyrannized over by illegal arrest, under letters de cachet issued by Ex-
ecutive authority.
" Instead of the legality of the arrest being examined in the judicial tribu-
nals appointed by the Constitution, it is to be examined in the Confederate
Star Chamber; that is, by officers appointed by the President. Why say
that the 'Preident shall cause proper officers to investigate' the legality
of arrests ordered by him ? Why not permit the Judges, whose constitu-
tional right and duty it is, to do it ?
" We are witnessing with too much indifference assumptions of power by
the Confederate Government which in ordinary times would arouse the
whole country to indignant rebuke and stern resistance. History teaches
us that submission to one encroachment upon constitutional liberty is always
followed by another ; and we should not forget that important rights, yielded
to those in power, without rebuke or protest, are never recovered by the
people without revolution.
" If this act is acquiesced in, the President, the Secretary of War, and the
commander of the Trans-Mississippi department under the control of the
President, each has the power conferred by Congress to imprison wiioniso-
ever he chooses ; and it is only necessary to allege that it is done on account
of ' treasonable efforts ' or of ' conspiracies to resist the lawful authority of
the Confederate States,' or for 'giving aid and comfort to the enemy,' or
other of the causes of arrest enumerated in the Statute, and have a subaltern
to file his affidavit accordingly after the arrest if a writ of habeas corpus is
sued out, and no court dare inquire into the cause of the imprisonment.
The Statute makes the President and not the courts the judge of the suffi-
ciency of the cause for his own acts. Either of you or any other citizen of
Georgia, may at any moment (as Mr. Vallandigham was in Ohio) be drag-
ged from your homes at midnight by armed force, and imprisoned at the will
of the President, upon the pretext that you have been guilty of some offence
of the character above named, and no court known to our judiciary can in-
quire into the wrong or grant relief.
" When such bold strides towards military despotism and absolute author-
ity are taken by those in whom we have confided, and who have been placed
in high official position, to guard and protect constitutional and personal
liberty, it is the duty of every patriotic citizen to sound the alarm ; and of
the State Legislatures to say in thunder tones, to those who assume to govern
us by absolute power, that there is a point beyond which freemen will not
permit encroachments to go.
"The Legislatures of the respective States are looked to as the guardians
of the rights of those whom they represent, and it is their duty lo meet such
dangerous enactments upon the liberties of the people promptly; and express
their uuqiuilified condemnation ; and to instruct their Senators and request
their Kepreseutatives to repeal this most monstrous act, or resign a trust
286 CAUSES OF THE WAR,
which by permitting it to remain on the statute book they abuse, to the injury
of those who have honored them with their confidence in this trying period
of our history. I earnestly recommend that the Legislature of this State
take prompt action upon this subject, and stamp the act with the seal of their
indignant rebuke.
"Can the President no longer trust the judiciary with the exercise of the
legitimate powers conferred upon it by the Constitution and laws? In what
instance have the grave and dignified Judges proved disloyal or untrue to
our cause? When have they embarrassed the Government by turning loose
traitors, skulkers or spies? Have they not in every instance given the Gov-
ernment the benefit of their doubts in sustaining its action, though they might
thereby seem to encroach upon the rights of the States, and for a time deny
substantial justice to the people ? Then why this implied censure upon them ?
" What justification exists now for this most monstrous deed which did
not exist during the first or second year of the war, unless it be found in the
fact, that those in power have found the people ready to submit to every en-
croachment rather than make an issue with the Government while we are
at war with the enemy ; and have on that account been emboldened to take
the step which is intended to make the President as absolute in his power of
arrest and imprisonment as the Czar of all the Russias? What reception
would the members of Congress from the different States have met in 1861,
had they returned to their constituents and informed them that they had sus-
pended the habeas corpus, and given the President the power to imprison the
people of these States with no restraint upon his sovereign will? Why is
liberty less sacred now than it was in 1801? And what will we have gained
when we have achieved our independence of the Northern States if, in our
efforts to do so, we have permitted our form of government to be subverted,
and have lost constitutional liberty at home ?
" The hope of the country now rests in the new Congress soon to assemble.
They must maintain our liberties against encroachment and wipe this and
all such stains from the statute book, or the sun of liberty will soon set in
darkness and blood.
" Let the constituted authorities of each State send up to their representa-
tives when they assemble in Congress an unqualified demand for prompt re-
dress ; or a return of the commissions which they hold from their respective
States."
The Causes of the War, How Conducted, and Who
Responsible
He discusses as follows : —
♦' Cruel, bloody, desolating war is still waged against us by our relentless
enemies, who, disregarding the laws of nations and the rules of civilized war-
AND WHO RESPONSIBLE, 287
fare, whenever either interferes with their fanatical objects or their interest,
have in numerous instances been guilty of worse than savage cruelty.
" They have done all in their power to burn our cities when unable by
their skill and valor to occupy them ; and to turn innocent women and chil-
dren, who may have escaped death by the shells thrown among them without
previous notice, into the streets destitute of homes, food and clothing.
"They have devastated our country wherever their unhallowed feet have
trod our soil, burning and destroying factories, mills, agricultural implements,
and other valuable property.
" They have cruelly treated our sons while in captivity, and in violation of
a cartel agreed upon, have refused to exchange them with us for their own
soldiers unless we would consent, against the laws of nations, to exchange
our slaves as belligerents when induced or forced by thetn to take up arms
against us.
" They have done all in their power to incite our slaves to insurrection and
murder, and when unable to seduce them from their loyalty, have, when they
occupied our country, compelled them to engage in war against us.
" They have robbed us of our negro women and children who were com-
fortable, contented and happy with tlieir owners, and, under pretext of ex-
traordinary philanthropy, have in the name of liberty congregated thousands
of them together in places where they could have neither the comforts nor
the necessaries of life, there neglected and despised, to die by pestilence and
hunger.
" In numerous instances their brutal soldiers have violated the persons of
our innocent and helpless women ; and have desecrated the graves of our
ancestors, and polluted and defiled the altars which we have dedicated to the
worship of the living God.
" In addition to these and other enormities, hundreds of thousands of val-
uable lives both North and South have been sacrificed, causing the shriek of
the mother, the wail of the widow, and the cry of the orphan to ascend to
Heaven from almost every hearthstone in all the broad land once known as
the United States.
" Such is but a faint picture of the devastations, cruelty, and bloodshed,
which have marked this struggle.
"War in its most mitigated form, when conducted according to the rulra
established by the most enlightened and civilized nations, is a terrible scourge,
and cannot exist without the most enormous guilt resting upon the heads of
those who have without just cause brought it upon the innocent and helpless
people who are its unfortunate victims. Guilt may rest in unequal degrees
in a struggle like this upon both parties, but both cannot be innocent.
Where then rests this crushing load of guilt?
" While I trust I shall be able to show that it rests not upon the people nor
rulers of the South, I do not claim that it rested at the commencement of the
struggle upon the whole people of the North.
288 CAUSES OF THE WAR,
" There was a large, intelligent, and patriotic portion of the people of the
Nortliern States led by such men as Pierce, Douglas, Vallandigham, Bright,
Voorhees, Pugh, Seymour, AYood, and many otlier honorel names, wlio did
all in their power to rebuke and stay tlie wicked, reckless fanaticism which
precipitated the two sections into this terrible conflict. With such men as
these in power we might have lived together in the Union perpetually.
"In addition to the strength of the Democratic party in the North there
was a large number of persons whose education had brought tliern into sym-
pathy with the so-called Repul^lican or, in other words, the old Federal con-
solidation party, who would never have followed the wicked leaders of that
party who used the slavery question as a hobby upon which to ride into
power, and who today stand before Heaven and Earth guilty of shedding
the blood of hundreds of thousands and destroying the brightest hopes of
posterity, had tliey known the true objects of their leaders and the results
which must follow the triumph of their policy at the ballot-box.
" The moral guilt of this war rested then in its incipiericy neither upon the
people of the South, nor upon the Democratic party of the North, or upon
that part of the Republican party who were deluded aiid deceived. But it
rested upon the heads of the wicked leaders of the Republican party who
had refused to be bound by the compacts of the Constitution made by our
common ancestry. These men when in power in the respective States of the
North arrayed themselves in open hostility against an important provision of
the Constitution, for the security of clearly expressed and unquestionable
rights of the people of the Southern States.
"]\Iany of the more fanatical of them denounced the Constitution because
of its protection of the property of tlie slaveholder as a 'covenant with death
and a league with Hell,' and refusing to be bound by it, declared that a
' higher law ' was the rule of their conduct and appealed to the Bible as that
'higher law.' But when the pi-ecepts of God in favor of slavery were found
in both tlie Old and the New Testament they repudiated the Bible and its
divine Author and declared for an anti-Slavery Bible and an anti-Slavery God.
" The abolition party having, when in power in their respective States, set
at naught that part of the Constitution which guarantees protection to the
rights and property of the Southern people, and having by fraud and mis-
representation obtained possession of the Federal government, the Southern
people in pelf-defence were compelled to leave the Union in which their
rights were no longer respected. Having destroyed the Union by their
wicked acts and their bad faith, these leaders rallied a majoi-ity of the people
of the North to their support with a pr-omise to restore it again by force.
Monstrous paradox ! that a Union which was formed upon a compact be-
tween sovereign States, being eminently a creature of consent, is to be up-
held by force. But monstrous as it is, the war springs ostensibly from this
source — this is its origin, its soul, and its life, so far as a shadow of pretext
for it can be found. In their mad eflbrt to restore by force a Union which
AND WHO RESPONSIBLE. 289
they have destroyed, and to save themselves from the just vengeance which
awaited them for their crimes, the abolition leaders in power have lighted up
the continent with a blaze of war which has destroyed hundreds of millions
of dollars worth of property, and hundreds of thousands of valuable lives, and
loaded posterity with a debt which must cause wretchedness and poverty for
generations to come. And all for what? That fanaticism might triumph
over constitutional liberty, as achieved by the great men of 1776, and that
ambitious men might have place and power. In their efforts to destroy our
liberties the people of the North, if successful, would inevitably lose their
own by overturning, as they are now attempting to do, the great principles
of Republicanism upon which constitutional liberty rests. The Government
in the hands of the abolition administration is now a despotism as absolute as
that of Russia.
" Unoffending citizens are seized in their beds at night by armed force and
dragged to dungeons and incarcerated at the will of the tyrant, because they
have dared to speak for constitutional liberty, and to protest against military
despotism.
" The habeas corpus, — that great bulwark of liberty, without which no peo-
ple can be secure in their lives, persons, or property ; which cost the English
several bloody wars, and which was finally wrung from the crown by the
sturdy barons and people at the poiiit of the bayonet ; which has ever
been the boast of every American patriot, and which I pray God may never,
under pretext of military necessity, be yielded to encroachments by the people
of the South, — has been trampled under foot by the Government at Wash-
ington, wLich imprisons at its pleasure whomsoever it will.
" The freedom of the ballot-box has also been destroyed, and the elections
have been carried by the overawing influence of military force.
" Under pretext of keeping men enough in the field to subdue the South,
President Lincoln takes care to keep enough to hold the Xorth in subjection
also — to imprison, or exile those who attempt to sustain their ancient rights,
liberties, and usages, and to drive from the ballot box those who are not
subservient to his will, or enough of them to enable his party to carry the
elections. Can an intelligent Northern conservative man contemplate this
state of things, without exclaimiilg, 'whither are we drifting ? What will
we gain by the subjugation of the South, if in our attempt to do it we must
lose our own liberties ; and visit upon ourselves and our posterity the
chains of military despotism ? '
" How long a people once free will submit to the despotism of such a gov-
ernment the future must develop. One thing is certain ; while those who
now rule remain in power in Washington the people of the Sovereign States
of America can never adjust their difficulties. But war, bloodshed, devasta-
tion, and increased indebtedness must be the inevitable result. There must
be a change of administration, and more moderate councils prevail in the
Northern States before we can ever have peace. While subjugation, aboli-
19
290 CAUSES OF THE WAR,
tion, and confiscation are the terms offered by the Federal Government, the
Southern people will resist as long as the patriotic voice of woman can
stimulate a guerrilla band or a single armed soldier to deeds of daring in
defence of liberty and home.
" I have said the South is not the guilty party in this dreadful carnage,
and I think it not inappropriate that the reasons should often be repeated at
the bar of an intelligent public opinion ; that our own people and the world
should have ' line upon line, and precept upon precept,' ' here a little and
there a little,' ' in season and out of season ' as some may suppose, to
show the true nature of this contest, the principles involved, the objects
of the war on our side, as well as that of the enemy, that all right minded
men everywhere may see and understand that this contest is not of our seek-
ing, and that we have had no wish or desire to injure those who war against
us except so far as has been necessary for the protection and preservation
of ourselves. Our sole object from the beginning has been to defend, main-
tain, and preserve our ancient usages, customs, liberties, and institutions, as
achieved and established by our ancestors in the revolution of 1776.
" That Revolution was undertaken to establish two great rights — State
sovei'eignty and self government. Upon these the Declaration of Inde-
pendence was predicated, and they were the corner-stone upon which the
Constitution rested. The denial of these two great principles cost Great
Britain her American Colonies which had so long been her pride. And the
denial of them by the Government at Washington, if persisted in, must cost
the people of the United States the liberties of themselves and their poster-
ity. These are the pillars upon which the temple of constitutional liberty
stands, and if the Northern people, in their mad effort to destroy the sover-
eignty of the Southern States and take from our people the rights of self
government, should be able, with the strength of an ancient Samson, to lay
hold upon the pillars, and overturn the edifice, they must necessarily be
crushed beneath its ruins, as the destruction of State sovereignty and the
right of self government in the Southern States, by the agency of the Fed-
eral Government, necessarily involves the like destruction in the Northern
States; as no people can maintain these rights for themselves who will shed
the blood of their neighbors to destroy them in others. It is impossible for
half the States of a Confederacy, if they assist the central government to
destroy the rights and liberties of the other half, to maintain their own
rights and liberties against the central power after it has crushed their
Co-States.
" The two great truths announced by Mr. JeSerson, in the Declaration of
Independence and concurred in by all the great men of the Revolution were,
1st, ' That Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the
governed.' 2d, ' That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be,
free and independent States.'
" We are not to understand by the first great truth that each individual
AND WHO KESPONSIBLE. 291
member of the aggregate mass composing the State must give his consent
before he can be justly governed; or that the consent of each or a particular
class of individuals in a State is necessary. By the ' governed ' is evidently
here meant communities and bodies of men capable of organizing and main-
taining government. The ' consent of the governed ' refers to the aggregate
will of the community or State in its organized form, and expressed through
its legitimate and properly constituted oi'gans.
"In elaborating this great truth Mr. Jefferson in the Declaration of Inde-
pendence says, that governments are instituted among men to secure certain
'inalienable riglits' — that 'among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness; ' ' that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of
these ends it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it and to insti-
tute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organ-
izing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their
safety and happiness.'
"According to this great fundamental principle the Sovereign States of
America, North and South, can only be governed by their own consent; and
whenever the government to which they have given their consent becomes
destructive of the great ends for which it was formed, they have a perfect
right to 'abolish it' by withdrawing their consent from it, as the Colonies
did from the British Government, and to form a ' new Government, with its
foundations laid on such principles, and its powers organized in such form as
to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.' Upon
the application to the present controversy of this great principle, to which
the Northern States are as firmly committed as tbe Southern States, Georgia
can proudly challenge New York to trial before the bar of enlightened pub-
lic opinion, and impartial history must write the verdict in her favor and
triumphantly vindicate her action in the course she has pursued.
" Not only all the sovereign States of America have heretofore recognized
this great truth, but it has been recognized by the able and enlightened Em-
peror of the French, who owes his present elevation to the 'consent of the
governed.'
"He was called to the presidency by the free suffrage or consent of the
French people, and when he assumed the imperial title he again submitted
the question to the 'governed' at the ballot-box, and they gave their
' consent.'
" At the recent treaty of peace with the Emperor of Austria he ceded an
Austrian province to France, and Napoleon refused to ' govern it ' till the
people at the ballot-box gave ' their consent ' that he should do so.
" The Northern States of America are to-day, through the agency of the
despotism at Washington, waging a bloody war upon the Southern States,
to crush out this great American principle announced and maintained in a
seven years' war by our common ancestry, after it has won the approbation
of the ablest and most enlightened sovereign of Europe.
292 CAUSES OF THE WAE,
" In discussing this great principle I can but remark how strange is the
contrast between tlie conduct of the Emperor Napoleon and that of President
Lincoln. Napoleon refuses to govern a province till a majority of the people
at the ballot-box have given their consent. Lincoln, after havjng done all
in his power to destroy the freedom and purity of the ballot-box, announces
in his late proclamation his determination to govern the sovereign States of
the South by force, and to recognize and maintain as the Government of
these States, not those who at the ballot-box can obtain the ' consent of the
governed,' or of a majority of the people, but those who can obtain the con-
sent of one tenth of the people of the State. Knowing that he can never gov-
ern these States with ' the consent of the governed,' he tramples the Declar-
ation of Independence under his feet and proclaims to the world that he will
govern these States, not by the ' consent of the governed ' but by military
power, 30 soon as he can find one tenth of the governed humiliated enough to
give their consent.
" But the world must be struck with the absurdity of the pretext upon
■which he bases this extraordinary pretension. He says, in substance, the
Constitution required him to guarantee to each State a Republican form of
Government. And for the purpose of cariying out this provision of the Con-
stitution he proclaims that, so soon as one tenth of the people of each of the
seceded States shall be found abject enough to take an oath to support his
unconstitutional acts and at the same time to support the Constitution, and
shall do this monstrous deed, he will permit them to organize a State Gov-
ernment and will recognize them as the Government of the State and their
officers as the regularly constituted authorities of the State. These he will
aid in putting down, driving out, expelling, and exterminating the other
nine tenths, if they do not likewise take the prescribed oath.
" One tenth of the people of a State put up and aided by military force to
rule, govern, or exterminate nine tenths ! And this to be done under the
guise or professed object of guaranteeing Republicanism ! What would
Washington, Jetferson, Madison, Monroe, Adams, Hancock, or even Hamil-
ton have said to this kind of Republicanism ? What say the conservative
Northern statesmen of the present day, if permitted to speak? Does such a
government as this derive its just powers from the * consent of the governed ?'
Is this their understanding of the Republican Government which the United
States is to guarantee to each State? If so, what guaranty have they for the
freedom of their posterity ? If the Government at AVashington guarantees
such Republicanism as this to Georgia in 1861, what may be her guaranty to
Ohio and other Western States in 1874 ?
" The absurdity of such a position, on constitutional principles or views, is
too glaring for comment. When such terms are offered to them, well may
the people of these States be nerved to defend their rights and liberties at
every hazard, under every privation, and to the last extremity.
" But I must notice the other great truth promulgated in the Declaration
AND WHO RESPONSIBLE. 293
of Independence — that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be,
free and independent States.
" George the third denied this great truth in 1776, and sent his armies into
Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia, to crush out its advocates, and main-
tain over the people a government which did not derive its powers from the
'consent of the governed.' President Lincoln in 1861 has made war upon
the same States and their Confederates to crush out the same doctrine by
armed force. Yet he has none of the apparent justification before the world
that the British King had. The colonies had been planted, nurtured and
governed by Great Britain. As States, they had never been independent and
never claimed to be. This claim was set up for the first time in the Declara-
tion of Independence. Under these circumstances, there was some reason
why the British Crown should resist it. But the great truth proclaimed was
more powerful than the armies and navy of Great Britain.
" On the 4th of July, 1776, our fathers made this declaration of freedom
and independence of the States. The Revolution was fought upon this
declaration, and on the 3d day of September, 1783, in the treaty of peace,
' His Britannic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, to wit, New
Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence plantations,
Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland,
Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, to he/ree, sovereign
and independent Slaieif, that he treats with them as such,' etc.
" On and after that day, Georgia stood before the woi"ld clad in all the
habiliments and possessed of all the attributes of sovereignty. When did
Georgia lose this sovereignty ? Was it by virtue of her previous compact
with her sister States ? Certainly not.
" The Articles of Confederation between the colonies, during the struggle,
set forth the objects to be attained, and the nature of the bond between the
parties to it, and the separate sovereignty of each of the States a party to it
was expressly reserved. Was it when she with the other States formed the
Constitution in 1787 ? Clearly not. The Constitution was a compact be-
tween the thirteen States, each of which had been recognized separately by
name, by the British King, as a, free, sovereign and independent State.
" The objects and purposes for which the Federal Government was formed
were distinctly specified, and were all set forth in the compact. The govern-
ment created by it was limited in its powers by the grant, with an express
reservation of all powers not delegated. The great attribute of separate
State Sovereignty was not delegated. In this particular, there was no change
from the Articles of Confederation, Sovereignty was still reserved and abided
with the States respectively. This more ' perfect Union ' was based upon
the assumption that it was for the best interest of all the States to enter
into it, with the additional grant of powers and guarantees — each State being
bound as a sovereign to perform and discharge to the others all the new
obligations of the compact. It was so submitted to the people of the States
294 CAUSES OF THE WAR,
respectively and so acceded to by them. The States did not part with their
separate sovereignty by the adoption of the Constitution. In that instrument
all the powers delegated are specifically mentioned. Sovereignty, the great-
est of all political powers, the source from which all others emanate, is not
amongst those mentioned. It could not have been parted with except by
grant either expressed or clearly implied. The most degrading act a State
can do is to lay down or surrender her sovereignty. Indeed, it cannot be
done except by deed or grant. The surrender is not to be found in the Con-
stitution amongst the expressly granted powers. It cannot be amongst those
granted by implication ; for by the terms of the compact none are granted by
implication except such as ai'e incidental to or necessary and proper to exe-
cute those that are expressly granted. The incident can never be greater
than the object — and if nothing in the powers expressly granted amounts to
sovereignty, that which is the greatest of all powers cannot follow or be car-
ried after a lesser one, as an incident by implication — and then to put the
matter at rest forever, it is expressly declared that the powers not delegated
are reserved to the States respectively or to the people. Sovereignty, the
great source of all power, therefore was left with the States by the compact,
left where King George left it, and left where it has ever since remained, and
will remain forever if the people of the States are true to themselves, and
true to the great principles which their forefathers achieved at such cost of
blood and treasure, in the war of 1776.
" The Constitution was only the written contract or bond between the
sovereign States in which the covenants were all plainly expressed, and each
State as a sovereign pledged its faith to its sister States to observe and
keep these covenants. So long as each did this, all were bound by the com-
pact. But it is a rule as well known and as universally recognized in savage
as in civilized life — as well understood and as generally acquiesced in be-
tween sovereign States as between private individuals, that when one party
to a contract refuses to be bound by it, and to conform to its requirements,
the other party is released from further compliance.
'' Without entering into an argument to show the manner in which the
Isorthern States had perverted the contract, and warped its terms to suit
their own interest, in the enactment and enforcement of tariff laws for the
protection of their industry at the expense of the South, and in the enact-
ment of internal improvement laws, coast navigation laws, fishery laws, etc.,
etc., which were intended to enrich them at the expense of the people of the
South, I need cite but a single instance of open, avowed, self-confessed, and
even boasted violation of the compact by the Northern States, to prove that
the Southern States were released and discharged from further obligation to
the Northern States by every known rule of law, morality, or comity.
" One of the express covenants in the written bond to which the Northern
States subscribed, and without which, as is clearly seen by reference to the
debates in the Convention which formed the Constitution, the Southern States
never would have agreed to or formed the compact, was in these words :
AND WHO RESPONSIBLE. 295
" * No person held to service or labor in one State under the laws thereof,
escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law or regulation therein be
discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of
the party to whom such service or labor may be due.'
"Massachusetts and other abolition States utterly repudiated, annulled,
and set at naught this provision of the Constitution ; and refused either to
execute it or to permit the constituted authorities of the United States to
carry it out within their limits.
" This shameful violation by Massachusetts of her plighted faith to Georgia,
and this refusal to be bound by the parts of the Constitution which she re-
garded burdensome to her and unacceptable to her people, released Georgia
according to every principle of international law from further compliance
on her part. In other words, the Constitution was the bond of Union be-
tween Georgia and Massachusetts, and when Massachusetts refused longer
to be bound by the Constitution, she thereby dissolved the union between her
and Georgia.
"It is truthfully said in the Declaration of Independence, that 'experience
hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are suffer-
able, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are ac-
customed.' So it was with Georgia and her Southern sisters in this case.
Though Massachusetts and other Northern States by their faithless acts and
repudiation of the compact had dissolved the union existing between the
States, the Southern States did not declare the dissolution ; hoping that a
returning sense of justice on the part of the Northern States might cause
them again to observe their Constitutional obligations. So far from this be-
ing the case, they construed our forbearance into a consciousness of our weak-
ness, and inability to protect ourselves ; and they organized a great sectional
party, whose political creed was founded in injustice to the South; and whose
public declarations and acts sustained the action of Massachusetts and the
other faithless States.
" This party, whose creed was avowed hostility to the rights of the South,
triumphed in the election for President in 1860. The election of a Federal
Executive by a sectional party, upon a platform of avowed hostility to the Con-
stitutional rights of the South, to carry out in the Federal administration
the doctrines of Massachusetts, and other faithless States, left no further
ground for hope that the rights of the South would louger be respected by
the Northern States ; which had not only the Executive, but a majority of
the Congress.
" The people of the Southern States, each sovereign State acting for itself,
then met in Convention ; and, in the most solemn manner known to our form
of government, resumed the exercise of the powers which they had delegated
to the common agent, now faithless to the trust reposed in it.
"The right of Georgia as a member to the original compact to do this is
too clear for successful denial. And the right of Alabama, and the other
29 G CAUSES OF THE WAR,
States, which had been admitted into the union since the adoption of the Con-
stitution, is equally incontrovertible ; as each new State came into the union
as a sovereiijn, upon an equal footing in all respects whatever with the origi-
nal parties to the compact.
" The Confederate States can, therefore, with confidence, submit their acts
to the judgment of mankind; while with a clear conscience they appeal to
a just God to maintain them in their course. They were ever true to the com-
pact of the Union so long as they remained members of it — their obligations
xmder it were ever faithfully performed ; and no breach of it was ever laid at
their door, or truly charged against them. In exercising their undoubted
right to withdraw from the Union, when the covenant had been broken by
the Northern States, they sought no war — no strife. — They simply withdrew
from further connection with self-confessed, faithless confederates. They
offered no injury to them — threatened none — proposed none — intended none.
If their previous union with the Southern States had been advantageous to
them, and our withdrawal affected their interests injuriously, they ought to
have been truer to their obligations. They had no just cause to complain of
us, the breach of the compact was by themselves — the vital cord of the union
was severed by their own hands.
"After the withdrawal of the Confederate States from the Union, if those
whose gross dereliction of duty had caused it had reconsidered their own acts
and offered new assurances for better faith in future, the question would have
been fairly and justly put to the seceded States, in their sovereign capacity,
to determine whether, in view of their past and future interest and safety,
they should renew the union with them or not, and upon what terms and
guarantees; and if they had found it to be their interest to do so, upon any
terms that might have been agreed upon, on the principle assumed at the be-
ginning, that it was for the best interest of all the States to be bound by
some compact of union with a central government of limited powers, each
State faithfully performing its obligations, they would doubtless have con-
sented to it. But if they had found it to be their interest not to do it, they
would not and ought not to have done it. For the first law of nature, as ap-
plicable to States and communities as to individuals, is self-protection and
self-preservation.
" Possibly a new government might have been formed at that time, upon
the basis of the Germanic Confederation ; with a guaranty of the complete
sovereignty of all the separate States, and with a central agent or govern-
ment of more limited powers than the old one ; which would have been as
useful for defence against foreign aggression, and much less dangerous to the
sovereignt}'^ and the existence of the States than the old one when in the
hands of abolition leaders had proved itself to be.
" The length of time for which the Germanic Confederation has existed,
has proved that its strength lies in what might have been considered its weak-
ness— the separate sovereignty of tlie individual members, and the very lim-
ited powers of the central government.
AND WHO KESPONSIBLE. 297
" In taking the step which they were forced to do, the Southern States
were careful not to provoke a conflict of arms, or any serious misunderstand-
ing with the States that adhered to tlie government at Washington, as long
as it was possible to avoid it. Commissioners were sent to Washington to
settle and adjust all matters relating to their past connection, or joint inter-
ests and obligations, justly, honorably, and peaceably. Our commissioners
were not received — they were denied the privilege of an audience — they were
not heard. But they were indirectly trifled with, lied to, and misled by du-
plicity as infamous as that practised by Philip of Spain towards the peace
commissioners sent by Elizabeth of England. They were detained and de-
ceived with private assurances of a prospect of a peaceful settlement; while
the most extensive preparations were being made for war and subjugation.
When they discovered this they withdrew, and the government at Washing-
ton continued its vigorous preparations to reinforce its garrisons and hold
the possession of our forts, and to send armies to invade our territory.
" Having completed his preparations for war, and refused to hear any
propositions for a peaceful adjustment of our difficulties, President Lincoln
issued his proclamation declaring Georgia and the other seceded States to be
in rebellion, and sent forth his armies of invasion.
"In rebellion against whom or what? As sovereign States have no com-
mon arbiter, to whose decision they can appeal when they are unable to settle
their differences amicably, they often resort to the sword as the arbiter ; and
as sovereignty is always in dignity the equal of sovereignty, and a sovereign
can know no superior to which allegiance is due, one sovereign may be at
war with another, but one can never be in rebellion against another.
'* To say that the sovereign State of Georgia is in rebellion against the sov-
ereign State of Rhode Island is as much an absurdity as it would be to say
that the sovereign State of Russia was in rebellion against the sovereign
State of Great Britain in their late war. They were at war with each other,
but neither was in rebellion against the other, nor indeed could be ; for
neither owed any allegiance to the other.
" Nor could one of the sovereign States be in rebellion against the govern-
ment of the United States. That government was the creature of the States
by which it was created; and they had the same power to destroy it at pleas-
ure which they had to make it. It was their common agent with limited
powers, and the States by which the agency was created had the undoubted
right, when it abused these powers, to withdraw them. Suppose, by mutual
consent, all the States in the Union had met in convention, each in its sov-
ereign capacity, and had withdrawn all the delegated powers from the Fede-
ral government, and all the States had refused to send Senators or Represent-
atives to Congress, or to elect a President ; will any sane man question their
right, or deny that such action of the States would have destroyed the Federal
government? If so, the Federal government was the creature of the States
and could exist only at their pleasure. It lived and breathed only by their
298 CAUSES OF THE WAR,
consent. If all the parties to the compact had the right by mutual consent
to resume the powers delegated by them to the common agent, why had not
part of them the right to do so when the others violated the compact — refused
to be bound longer by its obligations, and thereby released their copartners?
The very fact that the States by which it was formed could at any time by
mutual consent disband, and destroy the Federal government, shows that it
had no original, inherent sovereignty or jurisdiction. As the creature of the
States it had only such powers and jurisdictions as they gave it; and it held
what it had at their pleasure. If, therefore, a State withdrew from the con-
federacy without just cause, it was a question for the other sovereign States
to consider what should be their future relations towards it, but it was a
question of which the Federal government had not the shadow of jurisdiction.
So long as Georgia remained in the Union, if her citizens had refused to obey
such laws of Congress as it had constitutional jurisdiction to pass, they might
have been in rebellion against the Federal government, because they resisted
the authority over them which Georgia had delegated to that government, and
which, with her consent, it still possessed. But if Georgia for just cause, of
which she was the judge, chose to withdraw from the Union and resume the
attributes of sovereignty which she had delegated to the United States Gov-
ernment, her citizens could no longer be subject to the laws of the Union, and
no longer guilty as rebels if they did not obey them.
"It could be as justly said that the principal who has delegated certain
limited powers to his agent in the transaction of business, which he has
afterwards withdrawn on account of their abuse by the agent, is in rebellion
against the agent; or that the master is in rebellion against his servant; or
the landlord against his tenant ; because he has withdrawn certain privi-
leges for a time allowed them, as that Georgia is in rebellion against her
former agent, the government of the United States.
" These I understand to be the great fundamental doctrines of our republi-
can form of government so ably expounded in the Virginia and Kentucky
resolutions of 1798 and 1799, which have ever since been a text book of tlie
true republican party of the United States. Departure from these principles
has destroyed the federal government and been the prolific cause of all our woes.
Out of this departure has spnmg the doctrine of loyalty and disloyalty of
the States to the Federal government, from which comes ostensibly this war
against us ; which is itself at war with the first principles of American con-
stitutional liberty. It involves the interests, the future safety and welfare,
of those States now deemed loyal, as well as those pronounced disloyal. It
is the doctrine of absolutism revived in its worst form. It strikes down the
essential principles of self-government ever held so sacred in our past
history ; and to which all the States were indebted for their unparalleled
career, in growth, prosperity, and greatness, so long as those principles were
adhered to and maintained inviolate.
*' If carried out and established, its end can be nothing but centralism and
AND WHO EESPONSIBLE. 299
despotism. It and its fatal corollary — the policy of forcing sovereign States
to the discharge of their assumed constitutional obligations — were fore-
shadowed by President Lincoln in his inaugural address.
" Now at the time of the delivery of that inaugural address it is well known
to him, that the faithless States above alluded to, and to whose votes in the
electoral college he was indebted for his election, had for years been in open,
avowed, and determined violation of their constitutional obligations. This
he well knew, and he also knew that the seceded States had withdrawn from
the Union because of this breach of faith on the part of the abolition States,
and other anticipated violations, more dangerous, threatened from the same
quarter. Yet without a word of rebuke, censure, or remonstrance with
them, for their most flagrant disloyalty to the constitution, and their disre-
gard of their most sacred obligations under it, he then threatened and now
wages war against us, on the ground of our disloyalty in seeking new safe-
guards for our security, when the old ones failed. And the people of those
very States, whose disloyal hands had severed the ties of the Union — break-
ing one of the essential parts of the compact, have been, and are, his most
furious myrmidons in this most wicked and unjust crusade against us, with
the view to compel the people of these so outraged States to return to the
discharge of their constitutional obligations ! It may be gravely doubted if
the history of the world can furnish an instance of grosser perfidy or more
shameful wrong.
" But while the war is thus waged, professedly under the paradoxical pre-
text of restoring the Union, that was a creature of consent, by force, and of
upholding the Constitution by coercing sovereign States ; yet its real objects,
as appears more obviously every day, are by no means so paradoxical. The
Union under the Constitution as it was, each and every State being bound
faithfully to perform and discharge its duties and obligations, and the central
government confining itself within the sphere of its limited powers, is what
the authors, projectors, and controllers of this war never wanted ; and never
intended ; and do not now intend to maintain.
" Whatever differences of opinion may have existed at the commencement,
among our own people, as to the policy of secession, or the objects of the
Federal government, all doubt has been dispelled by the abolition pi'ocla-
mation of President Lincoln and his subsequent action. Maddened by ab-
olition fanaticism and deadly hate for the white race of the South, he wages
war, not for the restoration of the Union — not for the support of the Con-
stitution— but for the abolition of slavery and the subjugation and, as he
doubtless desires, ultimate extermination of the Anglo-Norman race in the
Southern States. Dearly beloved by him as are the African race, his acts
are prompted less by love of them than by Puritanic hate for the Cavaliers,
the Huguenots, and Scotch Irish, whose blood courses freely through the
veins of the white population of the South. But Federal bayonets can never
reverse the laws of God, which must be done before the negro can be made
300 CAUSES OF THE WAR,
the equal of the white man of the South. The freedom sought for them by
the abolition party, if achieved, would result in their return to barbarism,
and their ultimate extermination from the soil, where most of them were
born and were comfortable and contented, under the guardian care of the
white race, before the wicked crusade was commenced.
" What have been the abolition achievements of the administration ? The
most that has been claimed by them is, that they have taken from their own-
ers, and set free, 100,000 negroes. What has this cost the white race of the
North and South ? More than half a million of white men slain or wrecked
in health beyond the hope of recovery, and an expenditure of not perhaps
less than four thousand millions of dollars. What will it cost at this rate to
liberate nearly 4,000,000 more of slaves ? Northern accounts of the sick-
ness, suffering and death, which have under Northern treatment carried off so
large a portion of those set free, ought to convince the most fanatical of the
cruel injury they are inflicting upon the poor helpless African.
"The real objects of the war aimed at from the beginning were and are,
not so much the deliverance of the African from bondage as the repudiation
of the great American doctrine of self-government; the subjugation of the
people of these States ; and the confiscation of their property. To carry out
their fell purpose by misleading some simple minded folks, within their own
limits as well as ours perhaps, they passed in the House of Representatives of
the Federal Congress a short time since the famous resolution :
'■ ' That as our country and the very existence of the best government ever
instituted by man is imperilled by the most causeless and wicked rebellion,
that the only hope of saving the country and preserving this government is
by the power of tlie sword, we are for the most vigorous prosecution of the
war, until the constitution and laws shall be enforced and obeyed in all parts
of the United States ; and to that end we oppose any armistice, or interven-
tion, or mediation, or proposition for peace, from any quarter, so long as
there shall be found a rebel in arms against the government ; and we ignore
all party names, lines and issues, and recognize but two parties to this war —
patriots, and traitors.'
" AVere solemn mockery, perfidious baseness, unmitigated hypocrisy, and
malignant barbarity, ever more conspicuously combined, and presented for
the just condemnation of a right thinking world, than they are in this reso-
lution, passed by the abolition majority in the Lincoln Congress ? Think of
the members from Massachusetts and Vermont voting for the most vigorous
prosecution of the war until the Constitution and laics shall be enforced and
obeyed in all parts of the United States. Think of the acts of the Legisla-
ture of ISIassachusetts, passed in 18 i3 and 1855, still standing upon her
statute book, setting at defiance the Constitution and laws. What would be-
come of these States ? And what would become of their members them-
selves, who have upheld and sustained these violations of the Constitution and
laivs, which is the chief reason why they now hold their seats, by the votes
AND WHO RESPONSIBLE. 301
of their constituents, if the war should be so waged ? How long would it be
before they would ground their arms of rebellion against the provision of
the Constitution which they have set at naught, and give it their loyal sup-
port? What would become of their President and his cabinet ; and all who
from the beginning of the war, and before that time, have been trampling
the Constitution under their feet? Were the war waged as they thus declare
it to be their purpose to wage it, they would be the first victims of the
sword, were it first turned, as it ought to be, against the first offenders.
This they know full well. Obedience to the Constitution is the last thing
they want or intend. Hence the mockery, baseness, and hypocrisy of such a
declaration of purpose. On their part, it is a war of most wanton and sav-
age aggression ; on ours, it is a war in defence of inalienable rights ; in de-
fence of everything for which freemen should live; and for which freemen
may well be willing to die.
" The inestimable rights of self-government, and State sovereignty, for
which their fathers and our fathers bled and suffered together, in the strug-
gle with England for independence, are the same for which we are now
engaged, in this most unnatural and sanguinary struggle with them. Those
rights are as dear to the people of these States as they were to those who
achieved them ; and on account of the great cost of achievement they are
the more preciously cherished by those to whom they were bequeathed, and
will never be surrendered or abandoned at less sacrifice.
" If no proposition for peace or armistice is to be received, or enterta?hed,
so long as we hold arms in our hands, to defend ourselves, our homes, our
hearthstones, our altars, and our birthright, against such ruthless and worse
than Vandal invaders, be it so ! We deem it due, however, to ourselves, to
the civilized world, and to those who shall come after us, to put upon record
what we are fighting for ; and to let all know, who may now or hereafter feel
an interest in knowing the real nature of this conflict, that the heavy respon-
sibility of such suffering, desolation, and carnage, may rest where it right-
fully belongs.
" It is believed that many of the people of the Northern States labor
under the impression that no propositions for peaceful adjustment have ever
been made by us.
" President Lincoln, in his letter to the ' Unconditional Union ' meeting:
at Springfield last summer, stated in substance, that no proposition for
peaceful adjustment of the matters in strife had ever been made to him by
those who were in control of the military forces of the Confederate States,
but if any such should be made, he would entertain and give it his consider-
ation.
" This was doubtless said to make the impression on the minds of those
not well informed, that the responsibility of the war was with us. This
declaration of President Lincoln stands in striking contrast with that above
quoted, from the republican members of the House of Representatives.
302 CAUSES OF THE WAR,
" When this statement was made by President Lincoln it was well known
to him that our commissioners sent to settle the whole matter in dispute,
peaceably, were refused a hearing ! They were not even permitted to pre-
sent their terms !
" This declaration was also made soon after it was well known throughout
the Confederate States at least that a distinguished son of this State, who
is a high functionary of the government at Richmond, had consented as
military commissioner to bear a communication in writing from President
Davis, the Commander-in-Chief of our armies, to President Lincoln kimself,
with authority to confer upon matters therein set forth. This commis-
sioner sent from the head of our armies was not granted an audience, nor
was the communication he bore received. That communication, as was after-
wards known, related to divers matters connected with the general conduct
of the war. Its nature, however, or to what it referred. President Lincoln
did not know when he refused to receive it. But from what is now known
of it, if he had received it, and had heard what terms might have been proposed
for the general conduct of the war, it is reasonable to conclude that the dis-
cussion of these and kindred topics might have led to some more definite
ideas of the aims and objects of the war on both sides, from which the ini-
tiative of peaceful adjustment might have sprung ; unless his real purpose
be, as it is believed to be, nothing short of the conquest and subjugation of
these States. His announcement, that no offer of terras of adjustment had
ever been made to him, is believed to be an artful pretext on his part to
cover and hide from the people, over whom he is assuming such absolute
sway, his deep designs first against our liberties, and then against theirs.
HOW PEACE SHOULD BE SOUGHT.
" In view of these difficulties it may be asked, when and how is this war
to terminate? It is impossible to say when it may terminate, but it is easy
to say how it will end. We do not seek to conquer the Northern people, and
if we are true to ourselves, they can never conquer us. We do not seek to
take from them the right of self-government or to govern them without their
consent ; and they have not force enough to govern us without our consent or
to deprive us of the right to govern ourselves. The blood ot hundreds of
thousands may yet be spilt and the war will not still be terminated by force
of arms. Negotiation will finally terminate it. The pen of the statesman,
more potent than the sword of the warrior, must do what the latter has failed
to do.
"But I may be asked how negotiations are to commence when President
Lincoln refuses to receive commissioners sent by us, and his Congress re-
solves to hear no proposition for peace ? I reply, that in my opinion it is
our duty to keep it always before the Northern people and the civilized
world, that we are ready to negotiate for peace whenever the people and
government of the Northern States are prepared to recognize the great fun-
AND WHO EESPONSIBLE. 303
damental principles of the Declaration of Independence, maintained by our
common ancestry — the riglit of all self-government and the sovereignty of the
Slates. In my judgment it is the duty of our government, after each im-
portant victory achieved by our gallant and glorious armies on the battle-
field, to make a distinct proposition to the Xorthern government for peace
upon these terms. By doing this, if the proposition is declined by them, we
will hold them up constantly in the wrong before their own people and the
judgment of mankind. If they refuse to receive the commissioners who bear
the proposition, publish it in the newspapers, and let the conduct of their
rulers be known to the people ; and there is reasonable ground to hope that
the time may not be far distant when a returning sense of justice, and a de-
sire for self-protection against despotism at home, will prompt the people of
the Northern IStates to hurl from power those who deny the fundamental
principle upon which their own liberties rest, and who can never be satiated
with human blood. Let us stand on no delicate point of etiquette or diplo-
matic ceremony. If the proposition is rejected a dozen times, let us tender
it again after the next victory — that the world may be reassured from month
to month that we are not responsible for the continuance of this devastation
and carnage.
" Let it be repeated again and again to the Northern people that all we ask
is that they recognize the great principle upon which their own government
rests — the sovereignty of the States: and let our own people hold our own gov-
ernment to a strict account for every encroachment upon this vital principle.
" Herein lies the simple solution of all these troubles.
" If there be any doubt or any question of doubt as to the sovereign will
of any one of all the States of this Confederacy, or of any border State whose
institutions are similar to ours not in the Confederacy, upon the subject of
their present or future alliance, let all armed force be withdrawn, and let
that sovereign will be fairly expressed at the ballot-box by the legal voters of
the State, and let all parties abide by the decision.
" Let each State have and freely exercise the right to determine its own
destiny in its own way. This is all that we have been struggling for from
the beginning. It is a principle that secures ' rights inestimable to freemen
and formidable to tyrants only.'
" Let both governments adopt this mode of settlement, which was be-
queathed to them by the great men of the Revolution, and which has since
been adopted by the Emperor Napoleon, as the only just mode for the gov-
ernment of States or even provinces ; and the ballot-box will soon achieve
what the sword cannot accomplish — restore peace to the country and uphold
the great doctrines of State sovereignty and Constitutional liberty.
"If it is a question of strife whether Kentucky or Maryland or any other
State shall cast her lot with the United States or the Confederate States ;
there is no mode of settling it so justly, with so little cost, and with so much
satisfaction to her own people, as to withdraw all military force from her
304 CAUSES OF THE WAR,
limits and leave the decision, not to the sword, but to the ballot-box. If she
should decide for herself to abolish slavery and go with the North, the Con-
federate government can have no just cause of complaint, for that govern-
ment had its origin in the doctrine that all its just 'powers are derived from
the consent of the governed,' and we have no right to insist on governing a
sovereign State against her will. But if she should decide to retain her in-
stitutions and go with the South, as we doubt not she will when the question
is fairly submitted to her people at the polls, the Lincoln government must
acquiesce, or it must repudiate and trample upon the very essential principles
on which it was founded, and which were carried out in practice by the
fathei's of the Republic for the first half century of its existence.
"What Southern man can object to this mode of settlement? It is all
that South Carolina, Virginia, or Georgia claimed when she seceded from
the Union. It is all that either has at any time claimed, and all that either
ever can justly claim. And what friend of Southern independence fears the
result? What has the abolition government done to cause the people of
any Southern State to desire to reverse her decision and return ingloriously
to its embrace ? Are we afraid the people of any seceded State will desire
to place the State back in the abolition union, under the Lincoln despotism,
after it has devastated their fields, laid waste their country, burned their
cities, slaughtered their sons, and degi-aded their daughters? There is no
reason for such fear.
"But I may be told that Mr. Lincoln has repudiated this principle in ad-
vance, and that it is idle again to tender a settlement upon these terms.
This is no reason why we should withhold the repeated renewal of the prop-
osition. Let it be made again and again, till the mass of the Northern peo-
ple understand it : and Mr. Lincoln cannot continue to stand before them
and the world, stained with the blood of their sons, their husbands, and their
fathers, and insist, when a proposition so fair is constantly tendered, that
thousands of new victims shall still continue to bleed, to gratify his abolition
fanaticism, satisfy his revenge, and serve his ambition to govern these
States, upon the decision of one tenth of the people in his favor, against the
other nine tenths. Let the Northern and Southern mind be brought to con-
template this subject in all its magnitude ; and while there may be extreme
men on the Northern side, satisfied with nothing less than the subjugation
of the South and the confiscation of our property, and like extremists on
the Southern side, whose morbid sensibilities are shocked at the mention of
negotiation, or the renewal of an ofi"er by us for a settlement upon any terms;
I cannot doubt that the cool-headed thinking men on both sides of the line,
who are devoted to the great principles of self-government, and State sover-
eignty, including the scar-covered veterans of the army, will finally settle
down upon this as the true solution of the great problem, which now em-
barrasses so many millions of people, and will find the higher truth between
the two extremes.
AND WHO RESPONSIBLE. 305
" If, upon the sober second thought, the public sentiment North sustains
the policy of Mr. Lincoln, when he proposes by the power of the sword to
place the great doctrines of the Declaration of Independence and the Con-
stitution of his country under his feet, and proclaims his purpose to govern
these States by military power when he shall have obtained the consent of
one tenth of the governed ; how can the same public sentiment condemn him,
if at the head of his vast armies he shall proclaim himself Emperor of the
whole country, and submit the question to the vote of the Northern people,
and when he has obtained, as he could easily do, the vote of one tenth in his
favor, he shall insist on his right to govern them as their legitimate sover-
eign? If he is right in principle in the one case, he would unquestionably
be right in the other. If he may rightfully continue the war against the
South to sustain the one, why may he not as rightfully turn his .armies
against the North to establish the other ?
" But the timid among us may say, how are we to meet and repel his armies,
if Mr. Lincoln shall continue to reject these terms and shall be sustained by
the sentiment of the North ? as he claims not only the right to govern us,
but lie claims the right to take from us all that we have.
" The answer is plain. Let every man do his duty ; and let us as a people
place our trust in God and we shall certainly repel his assaults and achieve
our independence, and if true to ourselves and to posterity we shall main-
tain our Constitutional liberty also. Tlie achievement of our independence
is a great object ; but not greater than the preservation of Constitutional
liberty.
"The good man cannot read the late proclamation of Mr. Lincoln without
being struck with the resemblance between it and a similar one issued,
several thousand years ago, by Ben-hadad, king of Syria. That wicked
king denied in others the right of self-government ; and vaunting himself in
numbers, and putting his trust in chariots and horses, he invaded Israel, and
besieged Samaria with an overwhelming force. " When the king of Israel,
with a small band, resisted his entrance into the city, the Syrian King sent
him this message : ' Thou shalt deliver me thy silver and thy gold, and thy
wives, and thy children ; yet I will send my servants unto tliee to-morrow,
about this time, and they shall search thy house, and the houses of thy serv-
ants ; and it shall be, that whatsoever is pleasant in thine eyes they shall
put in their hands and take it away.' The king of Israel consulted the
elders, after receiving this arrogant message, and replied : ' This thing I
may not do.' Ben-hadad enraged at this reply, and confident of his strength,
sent back and said :
'• ' The Gods do so to me, and more also, if the dust of Samaria shall suffice,
for handfuls, for all the people that follow me.' The king of Israel answered
and said : ' Tell him, let not him that girdeth on his harness boast himself
as he that putteth it off.'
" The result was, that the small band of Israelites, guided by Jehovah,
20
306 SHERMAN'S INVASION".
attacked the Syrian armies, and routed them with great slaughter, and upon
a second trial of strength the Syrian armies were destroyed and their king
made captive.
" When Mr. Lincoln, following the example of this wicked king, and relying
upon his chariots, and his horsemen, and his vast armies, to sustain a cause
equally unjust, proclaims to us, that aH we have is his, and that he will send
his servants, whose numbers are overwhelming, with arms in their hands to
take it, and threatens vengeance if we resist, let us — ' Tell him, .let not him
that girdeth on his harness boast himself as he that putteth it off.' ' The race
is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.' ' God is the judge, he put-
teth down one and setteth up another.'
" Not doubting the justice of our cau«;e, let us stand in our allotted places,
and in the name of Him who rules the hosts of Heaven and the armies of
Earth, let us continue to strike for liberty and independence, and our efforts
will ultimately be crowned with triumphant success.
"Joseph E. Brown."
On the 17th November, 1864, Governor Brown sent
the following message to the Legislature, to which that
body, representing the public spirit of this State, promptly
responded by the passage of the act called for, and by
placing the whole white population of the State able to do
military duty, between 16 and 55 years of age, subject to
his orders : —
"EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, \
MlLLEDGEVILLE, NoV. 7, 1864. )
" To the General Assembly:
" I have received what I consider reliable information, that the enemy
has burnt and laid waste a large part of Atlanta, and of several other towns
in upper Georgia, and has destroyed the State Road back to Allatoona, and
burnt the railroad bridge over the Chattahoochee River, and is now advanc-
ing in heavy force in the direction of Macon, and probably of this city, lay-
ing waste the country and towns in the line of his march.
" The emergency requires prompt, energetic action. If the whole man-
hood of the State will rally to the front, we can cheek his march and capture
or destroy his force. There are now in the State, large numbers of men not
under arms in either State or Confederate service. The class of State officers
not subject to militia duty, such as judge.s, justices of the inferior courts,
sheriffs, etc , will amount to a fine regiment.
•'There are numerous others with Confederate details, not connected with
the present active operations of the front, probably amounting to several
regiments. All these, end every other person in the State able to bear
APPEOPRIATIOX FOR DEFENCE. 307
arms, no matter what his position may be, should rally to the standard in
the field, till the emergency is passed.
"The present militia laws are not adequate to the occasion, and I respect-
fully ask the passage of a law, with the least possible delay, authorizing the
Governor to make a levy en masse of the whole male population, including
every mnn able to do military duty, during the emergency, and to accept, for
such length of time as may be agreed upon, the services of any companies,
battalions, regiments, brigades, or divisions of volunteers which may tender
their services, with any number of men which he may consider effective.
Plenary power should be given to compel all to report who fail or refuse to
do so.
" I respectfully suggest that the appropriation bill be taken up and passed
without delay, and that a military bill of the character indicated be also
passed, and that the Governor and Legislature then adjourn to the front, to
aid in the struggle till the enemy is repulsed, and to meet again if we should
live at such place as the Governor may designate.
" Joseph E. Brown."
On the same day the Legislature passed an act ap-
propriating $500,000 for the Georgia Relief and Hospital
Association ; $6,000,000 for indigent widows, orphans,
and soldiers' families of Georgia, and disabled soldiers ;
$800,000 to purchase corn for bread for counties over-
run by the Federal army ; $1,200,000 to pay any part
of the public debt to become due in 1865 ; $1,000,000 as
a military fund for the State ; $1,500,000 to be used in
exporting cotton and other produce to pay for clothing,
blankets, and other necessaries for Georgia troops, and
for the purpose of accumulating exchange in Europe, to
pay the interest on the sterling debt of the State, and to
meet the demands of the State for railroad supplies, and
authorized the issue of treasury notes to meet these
sums, all of which were placed by the act under the con-
trol of the Governor. All these appropriations resulted
from the powerful and urgent appeals of the Executive
in his messages.
The military fund, and that for the relief of the in-
digent, and of soldiers' families, were largely increased at
308 GEORGIA'S LOSSES IN THE WAR.
the extra session in March, 1865, held at Macon. And
the Quartermaster-General of the State was authorized
to issue clothing, shoes, hats, and blankets to all Georgia
soldiers in service.
As we have seen, the irregular manner of raising troops
effectually prevented the estimate of their number as
well as the commands in which the Georgians served.
It is also not now practical to report the number of those
who died of sickness and accidents, and from wounds in
battle, or the number of the maimed or disabled. It will
never be pretended by any candid and well-informed
person that this State suffered less than any one of her
sisters in proportion to population, or that on the battle-
fields they were less gallant, in camp and on the march
less orderly and obedient, or in the times of trial, hardship,
or affliction, less patient and enduring and uncomplaining.
Her voting population at the beginning was 101,505 ; she
sent a larger number than this to the field; of course maay
entered the service who were not voters. The confusion
that followed the downfall of the Confederacy prevented
any means of knowing the excess of loss by death ovar
those coming to manhood within the four years of war.
This State sent her men, and offered her material re-
sources on the altar of the Confederacy. In 1861 her
property was valued at $672,731,901. In 1868, the
earliest period at which official reports are had, it was
valued at $191,235,520 ; a loss had thus accrued in prop-
erty of $481,497,381 ; when to this we add the loss by
repudiated securities contracted during the war under
Federal dictation, the sum of $18,135,775, and the untold
amount of Confederate paper that became worthless, we
approximate the material loss of this great State by the
war and its results.
CONFLICT WITH THE CONFEDERACY. 309
In March, 1864, Governor Brown in his message to the
Legislature thus speaks of the matter of
CONFLICT WITH THE CONFEDERATE GOVERNMENT.
"But it may be said that an attempt to maintain the rights of the State
will produce conflict with the Confederate Government. I am aware that
there are those who, from motives not necessary to be here mentioned, are
ever ready to raise the cry of conflict, and to criticise and condemn the action
of Georgia in every case where her constituted authorities protest against
the encroachments of the central power, and seek to maintain her dignity
and sovereignty as a State, and the constitutional rights and liberties of her
people.
" Those who are unfriendly to State sovereignty and desire to consolidate
all power in the hands of the Confederate Government, hoping to promote
their undertaking by operating upon the fears of the timid, after each new
aggression upon the constitutional rights of the States, fill the newspaper
presses with the cry of cotijlict, and warn the people to beware of those who
seek to maintain their constitutional rights as agitators or partisans who may
embarrass the Confederate Government in the prosecution of the war.
" Let not the people be deceived by this false clamor. It is the same cry
of conflict which the Lincoln Government raised against all who defended the
rights of the Southern States against its tyranny. It is the cry which the
usurpers of power have ever raised against those who rebuke their encroach-
ments and refuse to yield to their aggressions.
"When did Georgia embarrass the Confederate Government in any matter
pertaining to the vigorous prosecution of the war? When did she fail to
furnish more than her full quota of troops, when she was called upon as a
State by the proper Confederate authority ? And when did her gallant sons
ever quail before the enemy, or fail nobly to illustrate her character upon the
battle-field ?
" She can not only repel the attacks of her enemies on the field of deadly
conflict, but she can as proudly repel the assaults of those who, ready to
bend the knee to power for position and patronage, set themselves up to criti-
cise her conduct, and she can confidently challenge them to point to a single
instance in which she has failed to fill a requisition for troops made upon her
through the regular constitutional channel. To the very last requisition
made she responded with over double the number required.
" She stands ready at all times to do her whole duty to the cause and to
the Confederacy; but while she does this, she will never cease to require that
her constitutional rights be respected and the liberties of her people pre-
served. While she deprecates all conflict with the Confederate Government,
if to require these be conflict, the conflict will never end till the object is
attained.
310 BROWN TRUE TO THE CONFEDERACY.
'For Freefloni's battle once begun,
Bequeatli'tl by bleeding sire to son,
Though baffled oft is ever won,'
will be emblazoned in letters of living light upon her proud banners, until
State sovereignty and constitutional liberty, as well as Confederate independ-
ence, are firmly established."
When his own State was invaded and overrun by the
Federal troops, under the victorious Sherman in his
inarch to the sea, and when the backbone of the Confed-
eracy was virtually broken, and the circulation of its life
blood impeded, the pulse beating low and extremities in
great part paralyzed and growing cold, and the people
who had sustained the Governor from the beginning of
the struggle were desponding and almost bereft of a ves-
tige of hope, there was an incident which puts forever
in the form of detraction, the pretended implication or
charge that Brown was not to the last true to the Con-
federacy and the common cause of independence.
General Sherman made overture to him as Governor
of this State for the peace of the State, and through Mr.
William Kino; invited him to a conference with a view to
this consummation. We are not now treatinoc of the mo-
tives of the commanding Federal general, but with the
purposes and aims of Governor Browai, who had the
opportunity to save himself and the State from farther
devastation and ruin, by abandoning his confederates in
the struggle, and acting on the line of policy then ascribed
to him, not by his friends or an impartial public, but by
his foes at home and in his own country.
Brown sent back to General Sherman the only reply
that he could have made without falsifying his past record,
his principles of public and private honor, and every
emotion and sentiment of his patriotic heart : —
BROWN TRUE TO THE CONFEDERACY. 311
" Say to General Sherman that Georgia has entered in-
to a confederation with her Southern sisters for the main-
tenance of the same sovereignty of each, severally, which
she claims for herself, and her. public faith thus pledged
shall never be violated by me. Come weal or come woe,
the State of Georgia shall never, by my consent, withdraw
from the confederation in dishonor. She will never make
separate terms with the enemy which may free her terri-
tory from invasion and leave her confederates in the lurch."
Such was the decisive action of a man in high official
station charged with the honor of his people, after the
advancing and overwhelming forces of the public enemy
had to a great extent placed it beyond himself and his
confederates to save the State from widespread ruin.
After the surrender of the Confederate armies, and not
before. Governor Brown surrendered to the Federal Gen-
eral Wilson, commanding in this State, and accepted from
him his parol and retired to the mansion at Milledgeville.
His parol was soon after violated by an actual arrest at
his own home by Federal soldiers and taken from him.
He was hurried away to Washington City and imprisoned
by armed force without delay, without the privilege of
conferring with his family and against his earnest protest
and claim of personal liberty on his parol from the Federal
commander.
He was afterwards released by President Johnson and
allowed to return home, where the State was under entire
military occupation, and when he was divested of all mil-
itary power and prevented by armed force from exercis-
ing any civil authority in the State ; and therefore he
resigned the office that had been by overpowering force
wrenched from him ; and the cause of independence for
which he had so long struggled, and the hope of Constitu-
312 FLIGHT FJEIOM MILLEDGEVILLE.
tional liberty as he had understood it in the nature and
history of the Government and the express terms of the
Federal Constitution ; retired to the pursuit of private
business, as did the civil officers of the State, as well as
the survivinor officers and soldiers of the Confederate
armies.
Flight from Milledgeville.
The approach of the Federal army to the State Capital
while the Legislature was in session produced a panic and
a stampede of that body and caused the sudden and hasty
departure of the State officials, including the Governor,
his family, and staff. The enemies of Governor Brown
were busy in circulating reports to damage him in the
estimation of the people. It was charged against him,
after his four years of labor and unremitted efforts in the
cause of liberty and independence, that he proved to be
selfish in this emergency, even in the small matter of
taking care of his private effects to the neglect of those
of the State, which might have been saved, but which he
left to fall into the hands of the enemy. The late Gen.
Richard Taylor, brother-in-law to President Davis, and
holding high military rank under him, having referred to
this criticism in his book entitled " Destruction and Re-
construction," has given it sufficient importance to call
for the publication of the facts and truths of the removal
from Milledgeville.
To this end the author has solicited a statement from
Gen. Ira R. Foster, the laborious, efficient, and indefatiga-
ble Quartermaster-General of the State during the entire
war; which statement, descriptive of the situation and
showing the criticism referred to to be without merit, is
here given : —
FLIGHT FROM MILLEDGEVILLE. 313
CuTHBERT, Ga., December ID, 1880.
"GEN. IRA R. FOSTER, Wairenton, Ala.
"-SiV; — 111 the late Gen. Richard Taylor's book entitled ' Destruction and
Reconstruction,' purporting to be his ' personal experiences in the late war,'
describing his visit to Georgia and the confusion produced by General Sher-
man's march through the State, reference is made to a criticism upon Ex-
Governor Brown, then attributed to his enemies, to the effect that, in leaving
the capitol with his family, he disregarded the State's property in order to
take care of his own effects ; that he even brought off his ' cow and cabbages.'
He also refers in terms calculated to disparage the State troops. These
matters derive importance from the high character of the gifted author, thus
putting them in permanent print. I call your attention to them as the
Quartermaster- General of the State, and ask a statement that will present
the facts and truths as they were in that exciting period, in order to do
justice to this State represented by her Executive.
" Respectfully your obt. servant and friend,
" IIerbkkt Fielder."
Warrentox, Ala., January 30, 1880.
"HOX. HERBERT FIELDER:
" Dear Sir:— I have received your letter of the 19th idt., calling my atten-
tion to the rumors that were circulated at the time of General Sherman's
advance to the sea by way of Milledgeville, to the effect that Governor
Brown in leaving the capitol with his family to escape the Federal troops,
disregarded the State's property in order to take care of his own, bringing
away his ' cow and cabbages.'
"In answer to your request for my statement in regard thereto, I have to
say — I often heard these reports, and knowing them to be untrue I as often
positively contradicted them. I was there in person, and as Quartermaster-
General of the State had immediate and entire supervision of the work ; I
have never seen more interest and anxiety manifested, or greater efforts
made to accomplish any object than was shown both by Governor Brown
and his wife in their endeavors to secure that property from the ravages of
the opposing army.
" It is well known that Governor Brown owned no property in Milledgeville
at the time, and that he had no private interest to care for and protect ex-
cept his wife and children, a span of horses and carriage, a fine cow presented
to Ills wife by a friend. These were removed only in time to save capture
by the Federal troops.
" I feel it to be my duty to give a short history of some of the scenes at
Milledgeville shortly after it was made known there that General Sherman
with his army had left Atlanta, and was on his way to the sea.
" The Legislature was in session, Governor Brown and family were occupy-
ing the Executive Mansion, and the city was thronged with visitors. When
314 FLIGHT FROM MILLEDGEVILLE.
hearing of the movements of the enemy the whole people became excited,
reaching almost to a panic. In the .ifternoon of that day the Legislature
promptly ailjourned, the members sought tlieir respective homes as best they
could, some taking passage on railroad trains, others in carriages and on
horseback, thereby draining the city and vicinity of wagon transportation.
" Immediately after being assured of the enemy's advance, Governor Brown
issued orders to rae, as Quarternaaster-Geueral of the State, to secure and
protect as best I could the most valuable of the State's perishable property
in and around the seat of government. I at once took in the situation, and
was assured that nothing short of Herculean efforts could handle the vast
quantity of goods and chattels at the State House, Executive Mansion, Peni-
tentiary, Armory, Arsenal, and in the quartermaster's and commissariat's
store-houses, in so short a time, with my limited facilities of transportation.
" Upon consideration Governor Brown and myself agreed that the Lunatic
Asylum afforded the safest and in many respects the most appropriate de-
pository for our immense stores.
" I, having only two or three wagons and teams at that place, immediately
put them, with all others I could command from the citizens by hire, im-
pressment, or otherwise, to removing the property to that place, taking the
most valuable first. I continued to do so with all possible rapidity for several
hours, until I became convinced that from the long distance to travel it
would be utterly impossible with my limited means to remove all the goods
to the asylum in the time allotted me, and so reported to Governor Brown.
Upon further consultation we concluded it would be safer and a wiser policy
as well as more expeditious, to haul tlie goods to and load them on cars (the
railroad depot being much nearer than the asylum), keep the cars ready to
move on short notice, and to remove them to southwest Georgia. We then
had an engine and several cars at the depot, and others were ordered and
supplied immediately. The removal to and loading on the cars was com-
menced and continued day and night with all the energy and rapidity possible
for man to use.
" Very soon after I began hauling goods to the depot I discovered that, from
the shortness of the distance to that place, it required more men to load and
unload the wagons in order to keep the teams rapidly moving, and so reported
to Governor Brown, assuring him that the deficiency could not be supplied
for either love or money. Whereupon he informed me the requisite number
could be furnished in a few minutes, as he was then preparing pardons for
most of the penitentiary convicts, who would be properly equipped and put
in the field under General Wayne as soon as I could dispense with their
service. But the remainder of the convicts, about ten or a dozen, composed
of life -time prisoners and the most noted desperadoes, would be sent
to lower Georgia under heavy guard, as he did not think it prudent to
leave any within the walls of the penitentiary to be released by General
Sherman and turned loose against us. In a short time, therefore, a large
FLIGHT FROM MILLEDGEVILLE. 315
number of ex-convicts headed by the noted Doctor Roberts reported for duty,
and by their timely aud efficient aid we were enabled to accomplish our great
undeitciking.
" The removal of the property in and around the Executive Mansion was
the last in order. Looking around to ascertain what should be taken away,
I discovered a luxuriant lot of collards in the garden; and without the
knowledge of Governor Brown or his wife I ordered Aunt Celia, an old colored
cook, to cut and bring them to where the wagons were being loaded. I de-
signed to have the last cabbage cut and put on the train if time would per-
mit, knowing the Governor's family would need part of them while refugee-
ing from place to place, and in part for the use of my own family then
camped on the line of railroad at Dawson, whither they had gone after fleeing
from Atlanta before General Sherman's fierce march. But not for Governor
Brown's and my own family alone did I wish to save and bring away the
cabbages. The greater part of them I desired and hoped to give to the
several hundred poor, homeless, destitute exiles, consisting of the widows
and orplians of slain Georgia soldiers ; families of brave ones still at the
front, aged men and women, and not a f<!w of our noble sons who had long
before volunteered and gone forth in the cause of the South and, after much
suffering and many hard battles, had returned diseased, maimed, and help-
less, to the care and protection of those for whom they had fought, had been
driven from their homes in Atlanta and vicinity by order of General Sher-
man and left on line of railroad to Macon and below there, and who had
been gathered up and taken to a place of refuge near Dawson.
"There, by order of Governor Brown, I had erected about one hundred
cabins in which they were sheltered, protected, and fed at the expense of the
State, under the immediate supervision of Milton A. Candler, who did his
whole duty in their behalf.
"I also discovered on the premises the fine milch cow alluded to, and ad-
vised Mrs. Brown to have her shipped on a stock car, as she would be of
great service to her children, and as by leaving her she would be stolen or
slaughtered by the Federal soldiers. Mrs. Brown assented and the cow was
driven to the train and placed on the car.
" As we were loading the last wagons with furniture we received a dispatch
that the enemy's cavalry were making rapid advances toward the Central
railroad between Macon and Milledgeville ; and this reminded us to be up
and oil lest our entire train might be captured and we made prisoners of
war. The loading of the wagons was about completed when I discovered
the small pile of cabbages cut by Celia lying in the yard and had them
thrown on top of the furniture, leaving at least nine tenths in the garden
uncut. The wagons off in double-quick time and with wonderful dispatch
unloaded on cars ; steam being up we left immediately and made the trip
to Macon in perhaps shorter time than any engine had ever done before.
" On reaching Macon, where a portion of the State troops were stationed, we
316 FLIGHT FKOM MILLEDGEVILLE.
found that our fears had been well founded, as the Federal cavalry had
reached and cut the railroad cat or near Griswoldville, a point over which we
had passed only a few minutes before.
" That eveniftii or the next morning our train with Governor Brown and
his family went down to Montezuma on the Southwestern railroad, and
stopped on a sideling, and while there at dinner, at Mrs. Brown's table on
board the cars, I remarked to her that she ought to have had some of our
Milledgeville greens cooked for dinner. Until then I have no idea that she,
the Governor, or any member of the family knew they were on board the
cars. They had all left the mansion before the last loads of furniture were
taken to the train. Even Aunt Celia did not know that those cut and piled
in the yard had been brought away. Such is the origin and history of the
cow and cabbage story.
"You allude in your letter to the work of General Taylor, and to another
criticism it contains upon the Georgia State troops, and the policy he attrib-
utes to Governor Brown of keeping them within the State under all cir-
cumstances ; and in which he refers to the fact of their having been outside
the State, in South Carolina near Savannah, as a clever trick practised on
them by General Toombs when tliey did not know where they were going,
and done without the authority of Governor Brown.
"This, within my personal knowledge, does great injustice to the gallant
troops who were at that time in the State service, and who distinguished
themselves on every battle-field from the time they entered the service until
the end of the struggle. It also does injustice to that able general, Gustavus
W. Smith, who was in command of the State troops.
" After General Sherman had passed Macon on his march to the sea, I heard
a conversation between Governor Brown and General Smith in reference to
the use of the State troops beyond the limits of the State, in which the Gov-
ernor instructed General Smith in emphatic terms to use the troops to the
very best of his ability to annoy and cripple General Sherman's army during
their march through the State. The Governor was asked by General Smith
during the interview whether, if within his opinion the public interest and
good of the cause required it, he should carry the State troops beyond the
limits of the State, or whether he should confine himself within its bound-
aries. To which the Governor replied with great etnphasis, ' Cripple the
enemy all you can in the State. But if you see where any advantage can be
gained, or where the common cause can be served by carrying them into
South Carolina, or to any point beyond the limits of the State, do not hesi-
tate a moment, but act promptly, and do all you can for Georgia and the
Confederacy.'
" At that time General Wayne's brigade- was in front of General Sherman
between Macon and Savannah, doing all they could to guard the bridges on
the Central railroad. And the body of the State militia were at Macon, where
they remained in the trenches for the protection of the city until Sherman's
FLIGHT FEOM MIL LEDGE VILLE. 317
army had passed. They were then thrown rapidly by rail into Sherman's
front near Savannah, and, as is well known to the country, were carried by
General Smith across the Savannah river into South Carolina, where they
fought a gallant battle and defeated the Federal general in command with
heavy losses. They were then brought back to Savannah, and did all they
could for the fortification of that city. "When Sherman's army beleaguered
the city, they were, as I am well informed, carried across on a pontoon bridge
into South Carolina, and did all they could to annoy the enemy in that State
up to about the time of the surrender. I am informed on the most re-
liable authority that there was no drawing back or murmuring on the part
of the State troops when the order came to march across the river into South
Carolina. But that they moved forward gallantly and cheerfully to dis-
charge that important duty as they had hitherto done in every instance when
duty called. Yours respectfully,
" Iba R. Foster."
CHAPTER X.
COI.'HESPONDENCE OF GOVERNOR BrOWN AND JaMES A.
Seddon, Secretary of War, 1864.
Upon the invasion of Georgia and the approach of
ovei whehning forces, under command of General Sher-
man to the city of Atlanta, Governor Brown called out
the State miUtia, the boys down to the age of sixteen
and old men up to fifty-five years of age, and the State
officials — some of whom had been elected or appointed
after being discharged for disability in the Confederate
service, and others who had held civil office and had not
been in the army. This force, such as elsewhere w^ere
non-combatants, in Georgia, under her Governor, was
calk'<l to the post of imminent danger and hardship, and
responded with great promptness. It amounted to about
ten thousand men, organized in companies and regiments,
choosing their own officers by election. They were under
Mnjor-General Gustavus W. Smith, with General Robert
Toombs as chief of staff, both of whom, having held com-
mands in the Confederate army, had resigned, and ac-
cepted commands of the State militia. But all under the
command, for the emergency that called them out, of the
Confederate General Johnston, until his removal, and
afterward of General Hood — doing noble and gallant ser-
vice, suffering great losses and hardships.
President Davis, with all the volunteer forces — inde-
pendent commands — of this State, all the requisitions
previously made more than filled, and all the arms-bear-
CORRESPONDENCE. 319
ing men liable to conscription under Confederate laws,
except the civil and militia officers already in service,
made through Mr. Seddon, Secretary of War, a requisi-
tion upon Governor Brown for these troops to be turned
over to the Confederate Government. The correspond-
ence that ensued is pertinent and full of interest upon
the subject of Georgia and the Confederacy. Hence we
give it entire : —
CORRESPONDENCE.
" CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA, )
War Department. /•
Richmond, Va., August 30, 18G4. )
"HIS EXCELLENCr J. E. BROWN,
" Governor of Georgia,
" Milledgeville, Georgia.
" Sir: — The condition of your State, subjected to formidable invasion and
menaced with destructive raids in different directions by the enemy, requires
the command of all the forces that can be summoned for defence. From recent
official correspondence submitted to the Department, it appears, on your state-
ment, that you have organized ten thousand or more of the militia of your
State, and 1 am instructed by the President to make requisition on you for
that number, and such further force of militia, to repel invasion, as you may
be able to organize, for Confederate service. Those within the limits of
General Hood's Department will report to him ; those outside, to the Com-
mandant of the Department of South Carolina and Georgia.
" Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
" James A. Seddon,
" Secretary of War."
"EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, )
Milledgeville, Ga., September 12, 1864. )
"HON. JAMES A. SEDDON, Secretary of War.
"Sir: — Your letter of the 30th of last month only reached me by last
mail.
"You refer to the fact that I have organized ten thousand of the militia
of this State, and say you are instructed by the President to make requisition
upon me for that number and such other force of militia to repel invasion as
I may be able to organize.
"You preface this requisition by the remark that the condition of my
320 CORRESPONDENCE OF GOV. BROWN
"kstate, subjected to formidable invasion and menaced with destructive raids
in different directions by tlie enemy, requires the command of all the forces
that can be summoned for defence.
"In common with the people of Georgia, I have abundant reason to regret
that the President has been so late in mailing this discovery. This 'formid-
able invasion ' commenced in May last, and has steadily forced its way, by
reason of overwhelming numbers, through tlie most fertile section of Georgia,
till its leader is now in possession of the city of Atlanta, menacing the
centre of the State, threatening by his winter campaign to cut the last line
of railroad that connects Virginia and the Carolinas with Alabama and i\Iis-
sissippi. The President, during most of the time since the campaign against
Atlanta began, has had at his command a large force, said to number some
30,000 men, in Texas and Louisiana. Since the brilliant victories achieved
by our armies in the latter State early in the season, this large force has had
no enemy to confront, except the troops of a few garrisons, who were in no
condition to penetrate the interior of the country or do any serious damage.
lie has also, if correctly reported, had about 20,000 men under General Early
invading Maryland and Pennsylvania, tliereby uniting Northern sentiment
{Igainst us and aiding President Lincoln to rally his people to reinforce his
armies. About the same time General Morgan was raiding in Kentucky,
and General Forrest, the great cavahy leader, has been kept in Northern Mis-
sissippi to repel raids after the country had been so often overrun as to leave
but little public property for them to destroy.
"Thus, reversing the rule upon which most great generals who have been
successful have acted, of rapid concentration of his forces at vital points to
destroy the invading army, the President has scattered his forces from Texas
to Pennsylvania while a severe blow was being struck at the heart of the
Confederacy; and Atlanta has been sacrificed and the interior of Georgia
thrown open to further invasion for want of reinforcements to the army of
Tennessee. Probably few intelligent men in the country, except the Presi-
dent and his advisers, have failed to see that if Generals Forrest and Morgan
had been sent to destroy the railroads over which General Sherman's sup-
plies have been transported for three hundred miles through an enemy's
country, and to keep the roads cut for a few weeks, and at the same time the
forces o[ General E. Kirby Smith and Major-General Early, or even half of
them, had been sent to reinforce General Johnston, or, after he was super-
seded, General Hood, the army of invasion might not only have been re-
pulsed and driven back, but routed and destroyed.
" This would instantly have relieved Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Ten-
nessee from invasion and raids, and have thrown open the green fields of Ken-
tucky for the support of our gallant troops. As the army of General Sher-
man is the only protection provided by the Lincoln government for the
Western States, and as the battle for the possession of a large portion of the
Mississippi Valley, as well as of the Gulf States, was to be fought in Geor-
AND THE SECRETAEY OF WAR. 321
gia, justice, not only to the people of Georgia, but the people of all the States,
required that all the troops which were not actually necessary to the defence
of Kichmond, and to hold the enemy in check at the most vital jioiuts on the
coast, should have been concentrated for the destruction of the Federal army
in Georgia, wliich would, in all probability, have brovight the war to a speedy
termination,
"I have begged the President to send reinforcements to the army for the
defence of Atlanta ever since the enemy were at Etowah. But a very small
number have been sent, and, if I am correctly informed, part of the troops un-
der General Hood's command have been ordered from this to other States.
" While we have been sorely pressed by the enemy, a camp of 30,000 Federal
prisoners has been kept in the rear of our army, which has added greatly to
our embarrassments, and has it seems required all the small force of Confed-
erate reserves, organized by Major-General Cobb, with other occasional re-
inforcements, to guard them. The reserve force organized under the late
Conscript Act for the State defence has been thus employed, I presume, by
order of the President, and in the hour of her peril Georgia has not had a single
one of them at the front with a musket in his hand to aid in her defence. Had
the militia been at his command for such service as he might have ordered,
and at such place as he might designate, the presumption is that the same re-
mark might have been applicable to them, as other employment could, as in
case of the local companies under the President's command, have been found
for them at other places while tlie enemy were besieging Atlanta.
" Another remarkable fact deserves attention. During the whole march of
the enemy upon Atlanta, and for more than a month after it was closely in-
vested and shelled by the enemy, it never seems to have occurred to the Pres-
ident to make requisition upon me for the militia of Georgia to aid in re-
pelling this 'formidable invasion' or these 'destructive raids,' and it is
only when he is informed that I have an organization of gallant, fearless men,
ready to defend the State against usurpations of power as well as invasions
by the enemy, that he makes requisition upon me for this force and all others
I can organize. I must express my astonishment, however, that you and the
President should seem to be ignorant of the fact that this force was organized
by me to aid in repelling the army of invasion, that it was placed by me un-
der the command of General Johnston and afterwards of General Hood for
the defence of Atlanta, and that the brave men of which it is composed, under
the command of the general appointed by the President for the defence of
the city, have taken their full share in the dangers, fatigues and sufferings of
the campaign, and have acted with distinguished valor both upon the battle
field and for over forty days in the trenches around the city of Atlanta, and
that they formed the rear guard when Atlanta was evacuated, and brought
off with tliem safe and in good order the reserve artillery of the army which
was especially intrusted to them by the Commander-in-Chief. For all this no
word of thanks or praise comes from the President to encourage them. They
21
322 CORRESPOXDEXCE OF GOV. BROWN
■were militia. Their generals and other officers were not appointed by the
President and their services are ignored by him.
" In making this requit-ition it is quite cloar that it was no part of the Pres-
ident's object to get tliese brave men into service. They were there at the
time, in the trenches, among those who were nearest to the enemy, where they
never faltered in a single instance. It was not done to produce harmony in
the command, for the most perfect harmony has existed betM'een me and both
the generals who have commanded the army since the militia were called
out, and it is well known that I placed them for the time under the absolute
control of the Confederate General commanding. It was not done to increase
the number in service at the front, for the President is too familiar with the
obstacles thrown in my way by Confederate officers when I have attempted
to compel men to go to the trenches, to have committed this mistake. It
was certainly not done to cause Georgia to furnish her quota of troops re-
quired in like proportion of other States, for she has already furnished more
than her just quota, and to every call responded with more than were required,
while she has borne the rigors of conscription executed with as much severity
as in any other State. I hear of no similar requisition having been made
upon any other State. While Georgia has more than filled every requisition
made upon her tn common icith her sister States, and has borne her full share
of conscription, and has for months had her reserved militia under arms from
sixteen to fifty-five years of age, I am informed that even the Confederate re-
serves of other States from seventeen to eighteen, and from forty-five to fifty,
have till very lately been permitted by the President to spend much of their
time at home attending to their ordinary business. Without depaiting from
legitimate inquiry as to the cause of this requisition, I might ask why this
distinction is made against the good people of this State, and why her Con-
federate reserves are kept constantly in service, and why requisition is made
for her whole militia, when the same is not required of any other State. It
is quite clear that it was not made either to compel the State to do her just
part, which she has always done, or to put more of her sons into active service
for her defence, for every man called for by the requisition was in service be-
fore it was made. The President must then have had some other motive in
making the requisition, and I think it not uncliaritable under all the circum-
stances to conclude that the object was to grasp into his own hands the en-
tire control of the whole reserve militia of the State, which would enable him
to disband its present organization, and place in power over it his own par-
tisans and favorites as major-generals, brigadier-generals etc., etc., in place
of the distinguished officers who were appointed to command in conformity
to the Constitution of the country and the laws of the State, and who have
commanded the organization with so much honor to themselves, satisfaction
to the troops, and advantage to the public service.
" Again, it is worthy of remark that the requisition is made upon me for
the whole militia of the State— all I have oiganized and all I can organize —
AND THE SECRETARY OF WAR. 323
"withovit limitation of time or place of service. If I comply with it the
militia of Georgia, after the President has obtained absolute control over
them, may be taken for the war from their State, as tens of thousands of their
briVJ fellow citizens no.v aie, while Georgia and their homes are being over-
run. If I am asked to trust the sound judgment and good faith of the
President for their discharge and return to their homes at sucli times as their
services are not indispensable in the military field, I cannot forget the faith
that was violated last fall to thousands of Georgians who were organized
under a requisition from the President to be ' employed in the local defence
of important cities, and in repelling in emergencies the s^udden or transient in-
cursions of the enemy,' to be employed ' onl}' when and so long as they
might be needed,' ' with the privilege of remaining at home in the pursuit
of their ordinary avocations unless when called for a temporary exigency to
active duty.'
'• Thousands of these men, organized for six months' service with the
guarantees above mentioned, were called out early in September last and
were kept constantly in service till the expiration of their term in March.
During most of the time they were guarding no important city. There was
no sudden emergency or transient incursion of the enemy, no exigency for
the last four months of the time, and still they were kept in service in viola-
tion of .the faith that had been pledged to tliem, and were denied the privi-
lege of going home or attending to the ' pursuit of any of their ordinary
avocations,' and this too after the contract under which they had entered
the service had been pressed upon the consideration of the President.
"It is impossible for the agricultural and other industrial pursuits of the
people to be saved from ruin if the whole reserve militia of the State from
16 to 55 are put permanently into the service as regular troops. Judging
from the past, I cannot place them at the command of the President for the
war without great apprehension that such would be their fate. Indeed, not
even the President's promise to the contrary is found in the requisition you
now make. I am not, therefore, willing to expose the whole reserve militia
of Georgia to this injustice, and our agricultural and other interests to ruin
when no other State is required to make any such sacrifice or to fill any such
requisition.
" The Constitution of the Confederate States authorizes the States as well
as the Confederacy to keep troops in time of war when actually invaded, as
Georgia now is. Her militia have been organized and called into active ser-
vice under her own laws for her own defence, and I do not feel that I am
authorized to destroy her military organization at the behest of the Presi-
dent, or to surrender to him the command of the troops organized and re-
tained by her by virtue of her reserved power for her own defence when
greatly needed for that purpose, and which are her only remaining protec-
tion against the encroachments of centralized power. I tlierefore decline to
compl^fc'with or fill this extraordinary requisition. While I refuse to gratify
324 CORRESPONDENCE OF GOV. BROWN
the President's ambition in this particular, and to surrender the last vestige
of the sovereignty of the State by placing the remainder of her militia under
his control for the war, I beg to assure you that I shall not hesitate to order
them to the front, and they will not shun the thickest of the fight vihen the
enemy is to be met upon the soil of their beloved State. Nor will I withhold
them from the temporary command of the Confederate general who controls
the army during great emergencies when he needs their aid.
" I shall, however, retain the power to withdraw them and to furlough or
disband them for a time to look to their agricultural and other vital interests
which would otherwise be ruined by neglect, whenever I see they can be
.spared from the military field without endangering the safety of the State.
Of this the Governor of the State at Milledgeville, where he is near the field
of operations and can have frequent interviews with the commanding gen-
eral, OMght to be as competent to judge as the President of the Confederacy
some hundreds of miles from the scene of action, charged with the defence of
llichmond and all the other responsibilities which require his attention and
divide his time.
" Georgia now has upon the soil of Virginia nearly fifty regiments of as
brave troops as ever met the enemy in deadly conflict, not one of which
ever faltered in the hour of trial. She has many others equally gallant
aiding in the defence of other States. Indeed, the blood of her sons has
crimsoned almost every battle-field east of the Mississippi from the first
Manassas to the fall of Atlanta. Her gallant sons who still survive are
kept by the President's orders far from her soil while their homes are being
overrun, their wives and children driven out before the enemy and reduced
to beggary and want, and their almost idolized State exposed to temporary
subjugation and ruin. Experience having shown that the army of Tennes-
see with the aid of the militia force of the State is not able to withstand and
drive back the overwhelming numbers of the army of invasion, as the Exec-
utive of Georgia, in behalf of her brave sons now absent in other States a.s
well as of her whole people at home, I demand as an act of simple justice that
such reinforcements be sent as are necessary to enable the army upon her soil
to stop the progress of the enemy and dislodge and drive him back. In view
of the fact that the permanent possession of Georgia by the enemy not only
ruins her people, but cuts the Confederacy east of the Mississippi in two, and
strikes a death blow at the Confederate Government itself, I trust this most
reasonable request will be granted. If, however, I should be informed that
the President will send no reinforcements and make no further effort to
strengthen our defences, 1 then demand that he permit all the sons of
Georgia to return to their own State and within her own limits to rally
around her glorious flag — and as it flutters in the breeze in defiance of the
foe, to strike for their wives and their children, their homes and their altars,
and the ' green graves ' of their kindred and sires ; and I as their Executive
promise that whoever else may be withdrawn from her defence, they will
AND THE SECRETARY OF WAR. 325
drive the enemy back to her boi-ders, or, oyerwhelmed and stricken down,
they will nobly perish in one last grand and glorious effort to wrest the
standard of her liberties and independence from the grasp of the oppressor
and plant it immovably upon her sacred soil.
" I am very respectfully,
" Your obedient servant,
"Joseph E. Brown."
" CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA, ^
War Department, ^
Richmond, October 8, 1864. )
"HIS EXCELLENCY J. E. BROWN,
"Governor of Georgia,
" Milledgeville, Ga.
" Sir : — Your letter of the 12th ult. reached me some days since. Its tenor
and spirit have caused painful surprise. It requires forbearance in reply to
maintain the respect I would pay your station and observe the official pro-
priety you have so transcended. I shall seek to notice only such portions as
appropriately pertain to an official communication.
" The department, on the 30th of August, under the direction of the Presi-
dent, made a requisition upon you for the entire militia which had been or
should be organized by you, that they might be employed to repel the ' for-
midable invasion ' of Georgia by the enemy, and to secure her from ' de-
structive raids.' The requisition was for militia in a state of organization.
The appointment of the officers of militia is secured by the Constitution to
the State from which they are drawn, and in proposing to accept organized
militia, tlie officers legally appointed would necessarily accompany their
commands.
"The inducements to this call were several. You had in official commu-
nication stated that you had ten thousand militia organized, and you were
known to be apparently busy in organizing others. Of these, a portion, it
was known, were with the army of Tennessee in some auxiliary relation, and
had rendered valuable service with that army in the defence of Georgia. Only
a limited number, however, not believed to constitute half of the number
reported by you to be actually organized, were so employed, and were, as has
been announced by you, held there only at your pleasure, and for such time
and during such opeiations as you might approve. The services of these
gallant defenders of their State were so appreciated as to render it desirable
that the full number, organized or to be organized, should be secured to
repel the formidable invasion threatening to overrun the State ; and both to
impart greater unity and efficiency to the command of them and enable the
general commanding to rely on the period and tenure of their services, it was
necessary they should be in Confederate service, and subject not to your
judgment or disposal, but to the control of the constitutional commauder-in-
320 CORRESPONDENCE OF GOV. BROWN
cliief. It is easy to see how uncertainty as to their control or retention
must impair reliance by the commander on these troops, and embarrass all
calculations for their employment and efficiency in combined operations.
An additional ground of the call was that some of these troops h;id been
detailed for objects not admitted by the enrolling officers in the State to be
authorized by Confederate law, and others were claimed as primarily liable,
or previously subjected to Confederate service. This had engendered con-
troversy, and endangered collision between the local, Confederate and State
authorities whicli it was most desirable to anticipate and preclude.
" Besides, these militia, as far as they were serving the Confederate army,
had to be subsisted from the commissary stores of the Confederacy, and
might equitably expect pay from its treasury ; but if held as State troops
only, both subsistence and pay constituted a charge on the State alone.
" Serious embarrassments had already arisea on these very points, and de-
parture had been necessary from the regular obligations of tlie Confederate
Government, which were not just to either that Government or its disbursing
officers. The powers of the Confederate Government to provide for the
common defence are exercised according to laws through agencies adopted
by Congress. None of these laws contemplated the fulfilment of this duty,
by troops organized and held by the State in its own service, and under
officers responsible only to it.
"The Constitution of the Confederate States does not confer on the State
the power to keep troops in time of war. The States are prohibited from
' keeping troops or ships of war in time of peace, entering into any agree-
ment or compact with another State, or with a foreign power, or engaging in
war, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of
delay.' The power of keeping troops in time of war is thus reserved, and
naturally includes whatever is necessary to accomplish the object of the reser-
vation, and is limited in its scope and operation only by the Constitution of
the Confederate States ' and the laws which shall be made in pursuance
thereof.' It does not imply any withdrawal from the Confederate Govern-
ment, of those instrumentalities and agencies that the Constitution has con-
fided to the (iovernment of the Confederacy for the fulfilment of the
obligations it has imposed upon it.
" The powers to declare war, to raise armies, to maintain a navy, to make
rules for the government of the land and naval forces, to make rules concern-
ing captures on land and water, to protect each of the States against in-
vasion, which are deposited with Congress,manifest the purpose of the States
in forming their Constitution, to charge the Confederate Government with
the burden of providing for the common defence. The clause in the Consti-
tution relative to the militia was framed in harmony with the same purpose.
The Constitution charges Congress with the organization, equipment, and dis-
cipline of the militia, and designates the President as Commander-in-Chief of
those that may be called into service.
AND THE SECRETARY OF WAR. 327
"It vv'as evidently the design of the Constitution, and of the laws of Con-
gress, in pursuance thereof, which are the supreme laws of the land, that the
President should have the discretion and the power of calling this militia
into service, and having personally or through Confederate commanders, the
disposition and command of them. In a crisis of great peril, and in a case
of plain invasion of your State, he has exercised this power, and made the
Constitutional requirements on you. You have met it with a distinct
refusal.
" This is the first instance in the annals of the Confederacy of the sug-
gestion of a doubt on the right of the President to make such call, and the
obligation of compliance by the State Executive.
" During the last war with Great Britain, a question of the kind was made
by the GoA'ernors of Massachusetts and Connecticut with the President of the
then United States. They claimed to decide whether the exigencies existed
which authorized the President to make a i-equisition for militia to repel in-
vasions, and denied his power to associate them with other troops under a
Federal officer. They affected to believe the exercise of such a power, im-
perilled State rights, and promoted personal ambition. The judicial tribunals
determined adversely to the pretensions of these Governors, and the country
did not fail to discover, lui'king under their specious pretences, hostility
scarcely less than criminal to the constituted authorities of the Union, an un-
licensed ambition in themselves, and a dangerous purpose, in the midst of
war, to cripple patriotic efforts for the public defence. The impression was
not wanting, either then or since, that they were even in communication with
the enemy, or at least proposed to give them encouragement and moral
support.
" Without imputing to you such designs, I cannot repress apprehensions
of similar effects from your analogous course under the present more trying
circumstances, as indeed it must be admitted in all particulars, and
especially on the main point of the existence of invasion, there was more
plausibility in their case than in yours, on the grounds assigned for refusal.
" On analyzing your Excellency's letter, it is apparent that the prominent
and influencing reasons of your action, spring from a spirit of opposition to
the government of the Confederate States, and animosity to the Chief Mag-
istrate whom the people of the Confederacy have honored by their choice
and confidence. Your reasons may be reduced to the following:
"1. That the campaign in Georgia, not having been controlled by the
President, according to your conceptions or with the means you advised, you
will not permit any force j'ou can control to be subject to his disposition,
but will yourself retain their control and mete out your assistance according
to your views of policy and State interest.
" 2. That you suspect the President of a design, after the reception of these
militia, to disorganize or disband them that he may displace the officers
commanding them and substitute his partisans and favorites.
328 COREESPONDENCE OF GOV. BROWN
" 3. You apprehend that these militia, under the President's control, will be
eraploj-ed for such length of time and under such conditions as will be delete-
rious to the interests of themselves and the State, and esteem yourself a bet-
ter judge on these points, especially as to when and where they shall be
employed, furloughed, or discharged, etc.
"4. That these troops, besides being necessary as a defence against inva-
sion, are also necessary to defend the State against usurpations of power and
as ' a protection against the encroachment of centralized power,' and that the
knowledge of the President of their ability and disposition to do this was the
motive for the call on you.
"In reference to the first, it might not be safe, as it would not be expedi-
ent, now to expose the circumstances of the present campaign, the counsels
that guided, or the resources that have been or could be commanded for its
operations.
"None should have known more certainly than your Excellency the zeal
and energy with which the President and this department, under his auspices,
have striven to command resources and means for the defence of Georgia and
the overthrow of the invader, nor the impediments and difficulties often un-
fortunately resulting from the obstruction of the local authorities which they
had to encounter. Aware early of the danger that menaced the State, be-
sides concentrating ■ troops from other departments for its defence, this
department strained all the powers vested in it for recruiting the army
within the limits of Georgia and accumulating supplies for its support.
The legislation of the Congress that ended its session in February last had
been comprehensive and vigorous.
"Your Excellency cannot have forgotten how that legislation was de-
nounced and the efforts of the department impaired by the countervailing
action of the Executive and local authorities of your State. To the depart-
ment it cannot be imputed as a fault that Georgia was invaded by ' over-
whelming numbers.' The ten thousand militia you boast to have organized,
without adding to the count those you are proceeding to organize, if incor-
porated with the veteran regiments prior to the first of May, would have been
an invaluable acquisition to the army of Tennessee and not improbably have
hurled back the invader from the threshold of your State. That they, or a
large proportion of them at least, were not ready for that service and other
auxiliary means to its operations were not afforded, I am bound to think was
due to the obstacles and embarrassments interposed by your Excellency and
the local authorities, with your countenance, to the enforcement of the Acts
of Congress for the recruitment and maintenance of the armies. Your Ex-
cellency may not have foreseen and realized the extent and import of the
approaching invasion, but to whom then with most safety and wisdom (apart
even from constitutional obligation) can the disposition and command of the
troops in question be committed ?
" In your second reason it is difficult to find anything but the ascription
AND THE SECRETARY OF WAR. 329
to the President of an unworthy design — a design that cannot be accom-
plished without disappointing the objects which I have explained as the
cause of the requisition. The disbanding of the militia organizations after
their call into service would result in the discharge of such of the men as
are not liable to service under the Act of Congress of February last, and those
who are liable, in such an event, would be placed in those veteran regiments
raised for Confederate service in the State of Georgia prior to April, 1862,
■whose diminished numbers attest the fidelity, valor, and suffering with which
they have performed their duty. Whether, therefore, the militia be retained
in their militia organizations, as is contemplated, or be disbanded as you ap-
prehend may be done, in neither event can new organizations be made or
new officers appointed. Your suspicions as to the motives and designs of
the President are simply chimerical.
" In your third reason your Excellency has apparently forgotten the true
inquiry, where, constitutionally and legally in all such matters, tlie discretion
of decision is lodged, and further, that a provision adequate in the view of
Congress against abuse has been provided in the limitation of time for which
the militia may be called out to six months. In illustrating the danger of
undue detention in Confederate service your Excellency refers to the coarse
pursued towards the troops for local service enlisted by you last fall under a
call from the department. During the last winter your Excellency addressed
to this department an acrimonious letter on this subject, which was replied
to in a spirit of forbearance and with a careful abstinence from the use of
recriminating language.
"Justice to myself demands that I should place upon the records of the
department the facts to which you have again alluded in the same language
of acrimonious reproach. It had been designed to raise troops for special
defence and local service as the general rule throughout the State, to consti-
tute a part of the provisional army, and to be subject to the call of the
President when needed. You asked to supervise and control the whole
matter, and unfortunately the privilege was yielded.
" You abused it to form nondescript organizations, not conforming to the
regulations of the provisional army, scant in men and abounding in officers,
with every variety of obligation for local service, generally of the most re-
stricted character, and for the brief period of only six months. Thus it was
that you were enabled to indulge the vain boast of raising some sixteen thou-
sand men for the defence of the State, while in fact scarce a decent division of
four thousand men could be mustered for the field, and those only for six
months' service. From the time they were passed to Confederate service
there was pressing necessity for their presence in the field, for Georgia was
not only menaced, but actually invaded, and the number was too limited to
allow substitution or furlough. Apart from this, you persistently claimed
that they should be held and regarded as militia. In that view, they
could not if dismissed be recalled on emergency as local troops, and this
330 CORRESPONDENCE OF GOV. BROWN
naturally induced their detention for the full period of their limited term of
service.
" To your last reason I refrain from replying as its character would justify.
I cannot think the significancy of the language quoted has been duly appre-
ciated by your Excellency. I prefer to consider them as inconsiderate utter-
ances rather than the foreshadowing of a guilty purpose to array your State
in armed antagonism against the Confederacy, and so to betray the cause of
herself and sister States.
" Such purpose I know would be scorned and rebuked by her heroic sol-
diery and loyal people, and it will not, while it be possible to avoid it, be
ascribed by me to one whose official station makes him their recognized or-
gan. I must, however, gravely regret that the spirit of your Excellency's
past action and public expressions has caused grievous misconceptions in
relation to the feelings and purposes of yourself, and perhaps of others of
influence in your State, in the convictions of our enemies to their encourage-
ment, and the mortification of many patriotic citizens of the Confederacy.
♦' Our enemies appear to have conceived you were even prepared to enter-
tain overtures of separate accommodation, and that your State, so justly
proud of its faith, valor and renown, could be seduced or betrayed to treach-
ery and desertion. So painful a manifestation of the hopes inspired by your
indulgence of resentments and suspicions against the Confederate Adminis-
tration will, it is hoped, awaken to consideration and a change of future
action. To the department it would be far more grateful, instead of being
engaged in reminding of constitutional obligations and repelling unjust im-
putations, to be co-operating with your Excellency in a spirit of unity and
confidence, in the defence of your State and the overthrow of the invader.
" Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
"JAMES A. SEDDOX,
" Secretary of War."
i
"EXECUTIVE DEPARTiMENT,
MiLLEDGEVILLE, Ga.,
November 14, 18G-1.
"HON. JAMES A. SEDDON, Skcketary of Wak.
" Sir: — Official engagements have prevented earlier attention to your letter
of Sth ult., which reached me on the 20tli.
" You are pleased to characterize a portion of ray letter as acrimonious, and
claim that I have transcended the bounds of official propriety, and seem to
desire me to understand that you labor under difficulties in restraining your-
self within the bounds of forbearance in your reply. As the acrimony of
my letter consisted in a simple narrative of truths, communicated in a plain
straightforward manner, calling things by their right name, I feel that lam
due you no apology. Of course no personal disrespect was intended. I am
dealing not with individuals, but with great principles, and with the conduct
AND THE SECRETARY OF WAR. 331
of an administration of the government, of which your department is but
one branch. And if you will not consider the remark acrimonious, 1 will
add that the people of my State, not being dependent, and never intending
to be, upon that government for the privilege of exercising their natural
and Constitutional rights, nor the Executive of the State for his official ex-
istence, I shnll on all occasions feel at liberty to exercise perfect independ-
ence in the discharge of my official obligations, with no other restraints than
those thrown around me by a sense of duty, and the Constitution of my
country, and the laws of my State.
"You remark that this is the first instance in the annals of the Confederacy
of a suggestion of a doubt on the right of the President to make such a call,
and the obligation of compliance by the State Executive. Doubtless you
are right, as this is unquestionably the first instance in the annals of either
the ohl or new Confederacy of such a call, made by the President. It pre-
sents the isolated case of an attempt by the President to single out a partic-
ular State, and, by grasping into his own hands its whole military strength,
to divest it of its last vestige of power to maintain its sovereignty ; not only
denying to it the right plainly reserved in the Constitution to keep troops
in time of war when actually invaded, but claiming the power to deprive it
of its whole militia and leave it not a man to aid in the execution of its laws,
or to suppress servile insurrection in its midst.
" The President demands that Georgia shall turn over to him, and relin-
quish her command and control over every militiaman now organized by her
Executive, and all he may be able to organize. Tiie militia is composed
mainly of a class of men and boys, between ages not subject by the laws of
Congress or of the State to serve in the Confederate armies. The President
calls for all the State has of the above description. As no mch requisition
was ever before made upon any State, and it probably never entered into the
mind of any statesman that such a call ever would be made, it never became
necessary to question the right to make it.
" You cite the case of the refusal of the Governors of Massachusetts and
Connecticut, during the last war with Great Britain, to furnish troops for
the common defence upon the requisition of the President of the United
States, and say it must be admitted that my course is analogous to- theirs ' in
all particulars,' and that there was more plausibility in their case than in
mine, on the grounds assigned for refusal. Let us test this statement by the
standard of trutli. You say the cases are analogous 'in all particulars.' I
deny that they are analogous in any particular. To show the character of
that call, I quote the language of President Monroe :
" ' It will be recollected that when a call was made on the militia of that
State, for service in the war, under an arrangement which was alike appli-
cable to the m'dUia of all the States, and in conformity with the acts of Con-
gre.'^s, the Executive of Massachusetts refused to comply with the call.' That,
then, was a call under an arrangement alike applicable to the militia of all the
332 CORRESPONDENCE OF GOV. BROWN
States. This is not a call made under an arrangement alike applicable to the
militia of all the States, or indeed of any of the other States. This is a call
for all the militia which the Executive of Georgia has organized or may he
ahle to oj-ganize. No such call was made by the President upon the militia
of any other State. The analogy fails then at the very first step. But let
us trace it a little further. That was a call for men within the age required
to do military service in the armies of the United States. This is a call for
men who are exempt by act of Congress from all service in the Confederate
armies, and of whom it is expressly declared, by an act of the Legislature
of Georgia, that they shall not be ' liable to any draft or other compulsory
process to Jill any requisition for troops upon the Governor of the State by
the President of the Confederate States.' That was a call which the Presi-
dent could legally make, and which the Governors had lawful authority to
fill. This is a call which the President had no lawful right to make, and
which the Governor could not fill without violating a positive statute of his
State. That was a call for active militia who were not in service, but were
at home attending to their ordinary pursuits. This is a call for reserve
militia, who, at the time it was made and for months past, had been in
actual service — most of the time in the trenches around Atlanta, under the
constant fire of the guns of the enemy. In that case, the Governors of Mas-
sachusetts and Connecticut refused to place the militia of those States under
the command of a Federal general. In this case the militia had already
been placed by the Governor of Georgia under the command of a Confederate
general, where they were on the very day the call was made, and had been
for some months previous.
"In that case, the Governors of those States adjudged that no emergency
existed to justify the call for the militia, after the President had decided that
it did, and they refused to order them into the field. In this case, the Gov-
ernor of Georgia admitted that the emergency did exist, and had ordered
them in, months before the President saw the emergency and called for the
services of the militia. In that case, the President was making an houest
effort to get the militia of Massachusetts and Connecticut into service, to
aid in repelling any assaults that might be made by the enemy. In this
case, the President, after the reserve militia of Georgia had been called out
by the Governor and put into active service, was using his official influence
as shown by General Orders Nos. 63 and 67, issued by his Adjutant-Geueral,
to get the militia of Georgia out of service, where they were confronting the
enemy and shedding their blood in the defence of their State.
" When they were in the trenches under the fire of the enemy, the Presi-
dent held out, as a reward for their delinquency in case of their desertion
from the State militia and return home, a guarantee of the privilege of re-
maining there in local companies, to be called out only in emergencies to
defend their own counties and vicinage.
"I append to this letter, paragraph 1, General Order No. 63, ami a para-
AND THE SECRETARY OF WAR. 333
graph of General Order No. 67, by reference to which it will be seen that all
detailed men were required, and all exempts from Confederate service invited
to enroll themselves in local companies at home, with promise that they
should be called out only in emergencies to defend the counties of their
resid-ence and contiguous counties.
" The present militia of Georgia are composed oi exempts from Confederate
service and such detailed men as are not in the military service of the Con-
federate States. The militia of the State, then at the front, was composed
of men of these classes only. The order was addressed to all men of both
classes. The President denied the right of the Governor of Georgia to call
out the detailed men for service, and would, if consistent, stand ready to pro-
tect them in case they would desert the militia service and return home and
join his local companies. Thus the strong temptation of remaining at home
was held out by the President to these men if they would ingloriously aban-
don Atlanta when beleaguered by the enemy, and, after desertion from the
militia, enlist in Confederate service, which would give the President the en-
tire command of them and enable him to destroy the militia organization of
the State. Fortunately, the temptation succeeded in inducing but a small
portion of the militia to desert and return home. They were generally true
men and stood gallantly by their colors, knowing their country needed their
services at the front and not in local companies in the rear. General Order
No. 63 was issued on the 6th of August and was followed by General Order
No. 67 on the 16th of the same month. The President then waited two
weeks and as the militia still remained in the trenches around Atlanta he
found it necessary to change his policy and resort to a requisition upon me
for the whole militia of the State as the only means left of accomplishing his
objects.
" President Madison offered no such inducements to and made no such requi-
sition upon the militia of Massachusetts and Connecticut. So much for the
analogy of the two cases. But you are as unfortunate in your facts as in
your analogy, as will be further seen by your statement that the 'judicial
tribunals determined adversely to the pretensions of the Governors.' By ref-
erence to the 8th volume Massachusetts Reports Supplement, page 519, you
will find that the judges of the supreme court of that State had the case
before them and determined every point made by Governor Strong in his
favor and ' adversely to the pretensions ' of the President.
" But you remind me that the 10,000 militia, which you say I had organ-
ized, with those I was proceeding to organize, if incorporated with the veteran
regiments prior to the first of May, would have been an invaluable acquisi-
tion to the army of Tennessee and not improbably have hurled back the
invaders from the threshold of my State. If this were true and the move-
ments and strength of the enemy weie so much better understood by the
President than by myself, as you would have the country believe, why was it
that the President made no call for the militia in May when the armies were
334 COERESPONDENCE OF GOV. BROWN
above Dalton ? Why was the call delayed till tlie 30th of August, two days
before Atlanta fell, and then mailed to me too late to reach Mdledgeville till
after the fall? If the control of the whole militia of the State by the Pres-
ident was so essential to the defence of Atlanta, how do you account for the
neglect of the President to call for them till after the campaign had ended iu
the surrender of the city to the enemy ?
" Seeing that the President did not seem to appreciate the emergency and
the danger to Atlanta, upon consultation with that far-seeing general and
distinguished soldier, Joseph E. Johnston, I had ordered the militia to report
to him and aid the gallant army of Tennessee. I first ordered out the civil and
military officers of the State, when the armies were near Dalton, and afterwards
called out the reserved militia, including all between sixteen and fifty-five
years of age, when they were at Kennesaw. During all this time and for
nearly two months afterwards no call was made by the President for their
services. If the statements you now make are correct, surely such neglect
by the President iu so critical an emergency involves little less than
criminality.
" Again you state as one of the inducements to the call that I had stated in
official correspondence that I had ten thousand militia organized — that a por-
tion of these were known to be with the army of Tennessee in some auxiliary
relation — only a limited number, however, not believed to constitute half the
number reported by me to be actually organized.
" You are again incorrect iu your facts and, unfortunately, ignorant of the
strength of the force that was under your command.
"In the official correspondence to whicli I suppose you allude, I did not
state that 1 had organized ten thousand militia. The language used was,
'nearly ten thousand armed men.' At that time the two regiments of the
State Line, who are regular troops for the war, numbered nearly fifteen hun-
dred. They too were placed under the Confederate commander and nearly
five hundred of tliem while under his command have been disabled or lost
upon the battle-field. But if I had made the statement as you incorrectly
charge, it would liave been true.
"The tri-monthly ^-eport forwarded by Major-General G. W. Smith, wlio
commands the division of State militia, to General Hood, dated September
10, 1864, but a few days after the fall of Atlanta, showed upon the muster
rolls of his division nine thousand one hundred and seventy men. This re-
port did not include the regiment of Fulton county militia, which had been
detached for local service in the city under the command of Brigadier-General
M. J. Wright of the Confederate army; nor the regiment of Troup county
militia which was stationed by the commanding general at West Point under
Brigadier-General Tyler of the Confederate army. Nor did it include the
two regiments of the State Line which had been ordered into other divisions
of the army of Tennessee. Nor did it include tiie battalion of cadets of
the Georgia Military Institute, who did gallant service iu tlie trenches of
AND THE SECRETARY OF WAR. 335
Atlanta. Xor did it embrace the names of the gallant dead of this division,
who never turned their backs to the enemy but fell upon the battle-field or
died in the hospital. These had rendered the last service in the power of
the patriot to his country before the President saw the necessity which in-
duced him to call for them, and as they slept at the date of his call in the
soldiers' grave they were, unfortunately, unable to respond. But if you say that
the whole ten thousand were not in the trenches with muskets in their hands,
I reply that, while many were sick and some absent without leave, a larger
proportion of the number upon the muster rolls were there than of probably
any other division in General Hood's army, and, judging from the late
speech of the President in Macon, a much larger number than the usual
average in the armies of the Confederacy.
" As I understand your letter, you deny that it was the purpose of the
President to disband or disorganize the militia, and say he intended to take
the organization with all its officers and maintain it. I do not pretend to
quote your language, but state wliat I under.-taud to be the substance.
Unfortunately your own record contradicts you. In the requisition made by
you occurs this sentence: 'Those within the limits of General Hood's
department will report to him ; those outside to the Commandant of the
department of South Carolina jind Georgia.' The line between these depart-
ments cuts in two General Smith's division and probably three of the four
brigades of which it is composed, and the requisition orders that part of tliis
division and those brigades on one side of it to report to General Hood, then
at Atlanta, and that part on the other side, to the Commandant whose head-
quarters were at Charleston. But this was not all ; it amounted to an
order in advance, if I responded to the call, to a large proportion of the
militia then under arms to leave Atlanta in the very crisis of her fate and
return home and report to General Jones whose lieadquarters were at
Charleston. This would not only have permanently divided .and disbanded
the militia organization as it existed under the laws of the State, but would
have aided the President in carrying out his policy already referred to of
withdrawing the militia from Atlanta before its fall, and compelling armed
men then aiding in its defence to leave and report to a Commandant upon
the coast where there was no attack anticipated from the enemy. So deter-
mined was the President to accomplish both these objects that he did not
pretend to conceal his purpose, but incorporated it into the requisition itself.
" Past experience has also shown that the President will surmount all
obstacles to secure to himself the appointment of the officers who are to
command troops under his control. Soon after the commencement of the war
Georgia tendered to him an excellent brigade of her most gallant sons, fully
armed, accoutred and equipped with two months' training in camp of instruc-
tion. He refused to accept it as it wa.«, but disbanded it and, refusing to recog-
nize the commanding general (though every officer, I believe, in the brigade,
from the highest to the lowest, petitioned to have him retained), scattered the
336 CORRESPONDENCE OF GOV. BROWN
regiments into other brigades. The twelve months' men entered the service
with officers elected by them, and he accepted them with their officer.^. The
Constitution of the Confederate States, as I have heretofore most conclu-
sively shown, and as the Legislature of the State has resolved, as well as
the laws of the State, authorize them to elect officers to fill all vacancies that
occur. The President has disregarded this right, and claims and exercises
the right to appoint all sucli officers for tliem. His past course, as well as
the plain language of the requisition, shows that you misrepresent the Presi-
dent when you deny that it was his purpose in making the requisition to dis-
band the militia; and I am satisfied tliat I do him no injustice in supposing
that it was his intention, after they were disbanded, to appoint his own
partisans and favorites to command them.
" Reference is made in your letter to the act of Congress to show that the
President could only hold the militia six months under a call upon the Gov-
ernor for their services. You seem to forget that many of those then in
service for whom he called had already served nearly four months. And
you seem to suppose that I will be unmindful how easy it would be at the
end of six months for the President simply to renew the call for another six
months, and continue this to the end of the war, and in this way keep the
old men and boys of Georgia constantly in service to the destruction of all
her agricultural and other material interest, while no such requirement is
made of any other State. But if this were not possible by these repeated
calls, what guaranty have they under the act of Congress and the promise of
the President that they would be disbanded at the end of six months? The
original twelve months' men entered the service under the like protection, as
they supposed, of an act of Congress and a solemn contract with the Presi-
dent that they should be discharged at the end of their time. But before
the time expired the President procured another act of Congress which
changed the law on that subject, and he then refused to be bound by his con-
tract, and those of them who survive are yet in service near the end of the
fourth year. Even the furloughs promised them were not allowed. And
ministers of religion who made a contract with the Government to serve for
one year, and others who agreed to serve three years in the ranks, ai'e held
after the expiration of their time, when they would be embraced in the
exemption act, which protects those at home if the Government had kept its
faith and discharged them according to the contract.
"In this connection I must also notice your remarks in reference to the
six months' men of last fall in this State. And as every material statement
you now make upon that subject is contradicted by the records of your de-
partment, made up over your own signature, the task is an unpleasant one.
" You say ' it had been designed to raise troops for speci^il defence and
local service for the war with the obligation of service as the general rule
throuyltoul the State, to constitute a part of the provisioual army, and to be
subject to the call of the President when needed.' If this statement means
AND THE SECRETARY OF WAR. 337
anything, it is intended to mean that the call was made on me for the troops
to nerve for the war, with ol 'ligation, as the gcnernl rule, to do service ihrovgh-
out the Stale. That is what you now say. What did youthen say ? I quote
from your requisition of 6th June, 18G3.
" ' The President has therefore determined to make a requisition on the
Governors of the several States, to furnish by an appointed timn, for service
within the State, and for the limlte'l periml of six months, a nuniber of men,'
etc. Again, in the same requisition you say, ' I am instructed by the Presi-
dent, in his name, to make on you a requisition for eight thousand men, to
be furnished by your State, for the period of six months from the Jirst day
0/ August next, unless in the intermediate time a volunteer force organized
under the law for local 'le fence and special service, of at least an equal num-
ber, be mustered and reported as subject to his call for service within your
State.'
*' This does not look much a=? if the call was made for troops for the
WAR ! Was it for troops to serve as the general rule throughout the State? I
quote from the same document. You say, 'it becomes essential that the
reserves of our population capable of bearing arms, etc., be relied on for em-
ployment in the local defence of important cities, and in repelling in emergencies
the sudden or transient incursions of the enemy.' Again, ' local organizations
or enlistments by volunteering for limited periods and special purposes, if they
can be induced, would afford more assurance of prompt and efficient action.'
You then refer to the two acts of Congress for local defence and special ser-
vice, and enclose copies of them and call my attention to them. And you
proceed to say, ' under the former of these, if organizations could be effected,
with tlie limitations prescribed in their muster rolls, of service only at home or at
specified points of importance within the particular State, they would be ad-
mirably adapted to obtain the desired. end.' In speaking of the inducements
to be held out to those who will form volunteer companies under the act of
Congress, you speak of them as ' organizations for special service within the
State, under ofBcers of their own selection, and with the privilege of remain-
ing at home in the pursuit of their ordinary avocations, unless when called for
a temporary exigency to active duty.' In reference to the service to be per-
formed by these organizations, you then use this language :
" ' Without the general disturbance of a call on the militia, the organiza-
tions nearest to the points of attack would always be readily summoned to meet
the emergency, and the population resident in cities and their vicinities would,
■without serious interruption to their business or domestic engagements, stand
organized and prepared to man their entrenchments and defend, under the
most animating incitements, their property and homes.'
" You remark again, ' After the most active and least needed portion of
the reserves were embodied under the former law, the latter would allow
smaller organizations with more limited range of service, for objects of police
and the pressing contingencies of neighborhood defence. Could these laws be
22
338 CORRESPONDENCE OF GOV. BROWN
generally acted on, it is believed, as full organizations of the reserve popula-
tion would be secured for caswd needs as would be practicable.'
" There is not a word in any of this about service as the general rule
throughout the State. But every impression looks to local and limited services
in sudden emergencies, such as the sudden incursions of the enemy, and to
the defence of their own homes and the entrenchments around them, by those
who live in cities, ' to neighborhood defence,' 'casual raids,' etc., with the
clear promise to all that, so soon as the emergency had passed they should be
permitted to return home and attend to their 'ordinary avocations,' their
' business or domestic engagements,' etc. The troops recollect how thi.«5
promise was kept.
" But you charge that I had formed nondescript organizations not con-
forming to the regulations of the provisional army, scant in men and
abounding in officers, with every variety of obligation for local service, gen-
erally of the most restricted character, and for the brief period of only six
months.
"Each organization formed by me was in conformity to the statutes,
copies of which you enclosed as the guide for my action, and for the exact
time designated in your requisition over your own signature. Each had the
number of men specified in the statutes, and no one of them had a super-
numerary officer, with my consent, or so far as I know or believe. The requi-
sition expressly authorized me to accept troops for local defence, of the most
restricted cli^^racter, with ' the limitations prescribed in their muster rolls of
service only at home or at specified points of importance.' But while you ex-
pressly authorized this I refused to do it, except in case of companies of me-
chanics and other workmen in cities — the operatives in factories, and the
employees of railroads, etc., when the nature of their avocations made it
actually necessary. In all other cases I refused to accept the companies
when tendered, if their muMer rull<i did not cover and bind them to defend, at
least one-fourth of the whole territory of the State. Many of them covered
the whole territory of the State with the conditions of their muster rolls.
Some complaints were made at my course, because I required more than was
required by either the acts of Congress, or the requisition of the Secretary of
War.
" Another charge is, that when called out ' scarce a decent division of four
thousand men could be mustered for the field, and then only for six months.'
Your obliviousness of facts, as well as of records, is indeed remarkable.
Only those wliose mu<iter rolls embraced Atlanta and the territory between it
and the Tennessee line were called out till near the end of the period for
which all were enlisted, and you got a division of many more than four
thousand within that boundary.
'• The others, over twelve tliousand, were at home, engaged in their 'ordi-
nary avocations,' ready to respond to your call in case of an 'emergency,' or
' sudden incursion of the enemy.' But you never called for any of them till
AND THE SECRETARY OF WAR. 339
a short time before the end of the term of their enlistment. Those you then
called out you never even armed, and it was believed by them that they
were only assembled for the convenience of the conscript officers, to save
them the trouble of searching through the country to see if any among them
were subject to conscription. Nobody pretend;ed that there was any ' emer-
gency ' or ' sudden incursion of the enemy ' at the time of the last call, in the
sections of the State they had agreed to defend, I have gone thus fully into
this record for the purpose of showing the palpable injustice which you
attempt to do me, and of exposing the flimsy pretext under which you seek
to defend the bad faith which was exercised by the Government towards the
gallant men who, by their prompt response, more tlian doubly filled your
requisition in its letter and spirit.
" As a last means of escape you say I persistently claimed that they should
be held and regarded as militia. ' In that case they could not, if dismissed,
be recalled on emergency as local troops, and this naturally induced their
detention for the full period of their limited term of service.' I should have
been greatly obliged if you had given a reason why militia mustered into
service for the period of six months, with the express promise that they
should be permitted to remain at home in the pursuit of their ' ordinary
avocations,' except in 'emergencies ' or to meet ' sudden and transient incur-
sions of the enemy,' could not receive furloughs and return home between
'emergencies' and 'sudden and transient incursions of the enemy,' and re-
assemble on the recurrence of the emergency. Why could not the same
men, living in the same district, united for the same purpose, to defend the
same territory against 'sudden and transient incursions of the enemy,' have
received furloughs to return home and attend to the pursuit of their ' ordinary
avocations,' if called militia and commanded by officers appointed as the Con-
stitution provides, by the States, as well as if called local companies, and
commanded by officers appointed by the President ? What strange magic is
there about the President's commission which would enable men, organized
for service under officers holding it, to receive furloughs when not needed
for service, which the same men, organized for the same service, could not get
if their officers received their commissions in the constitutional mode from
the State ? If the same companies, composed of the same officers and men,
may be temporarily dismissed when not needed for the service they have
engaged to render when called by the name ' local companies,' why may this
not be done when they are called by the name militia?
"As no reason can exist for the distinction you attempt to draw as a justi-
fication of the President's conduct, none was as-igned by you. It is simply
absurd to say that the militia cannot be furloughed and sent home when not
needed, to be recalled when needed. But for the interruption of our militia
organization, which grew out of the Conscript Act of February last, instead
of ten thousand, I could have sent nearer thirty thousand to Atlanta, to aid
in its defence.
340 CORRESPONDENCE OF GOV. BROWN
" The Legislature, unfortunately for Georgia, turned over to the President's
control that part of the organized militia within the ages specified in the
act of Congress and, when the hour of Y)eri\ came, out of all the large num-
ber embraced in the act of Congress, and turned over to his control by the
resolution of the Legislature, he had not a single one at the front with a
musket in his hands, to aid in the defence of the State. Of all the Confed-
erate reserves, to which the State was told she might safely look for defence,
not a man with a musket in his hands was at the front during the whole
march of the Federal army from Dalton till its triumphant entrance into
Atlanta. And if action had been delayed until the President called, as
shown by the date of his call, not a man of all the reserve militia of the
State would have been there. The Confederate reserves organized were not
sufficiently numerous to guard the unarmed Federal prisoners in the State,
and I had to furnish, when their services were much needed at the front, a
battalion of militia to aid them.
"The interruption by the State authorities, to wiiich you refer, is entirely
imaginary. After the decision of the Legislature, your officers were left
perfectly free to execute the law of Congress in all its rigor. But if it were
real, surely the President, with the aid of his large force of officers in this
State, should have been able to get somebody to the front. A single man
with a good musket might have rendered some assistance. Or if this, by
reason of inefficiency, could not be done, if he had ordered his corps of con-
script officers there, as I ordered the State officers, they were sufficiently
numerous to have done essential service. For even this favor, at that crit-
ical period, the people of Georgia would have been under great obligations
to him.
♦' I must not forget another ground of the call, as you term it, which was
that some of these troops (the ten thousand organized militia) had been de-
tailed for objects not admitted by enrolling officers in the State to be au-
thorized by Confederate law, and others were claimed as primarily liable,
or previously subject to Confederate service. This, you say, had 'engen-
dered controversy,' which it was most desirable to ' anticipate and preclude.'
As Confederate enrolling officers had denied the right of the State to make
details, and had claimed certain men whom the Governor held as a part of
the militia of the State, and as the Governor did not at once yield to the
pretensions of those Confederate officers, but was disposed to contend for
the rights of the State, the President, unwilling to allow the controversy,
determined to relieve the State of her lohole militia, by making requisition for
it, and taking it all into his own hands, which would ' anticipate and pre-
clude' any further controversy ; as the State, having no militia left, need
have no further controversy about her right to any particular individuals as
part of it.
" This new discovery of the President of the mode of settling a contro-
verted right, and the magnanimity and statesman^hip displayed by him in
AND THE SECRETARY OF WAR. 341
this affair, cannot be too highly appreciated. By imitating his example in
future, the stronger party can always make a speedy settlement with the
weaker, without allowing any unpleasant controversy about rights.
" Your assertion, that my past action and public expressions have given
encouragement to our enemies, to the mortification of many patriotic citizens
of the Confederacy, may be properly disposed of by the single remark, that
if we may judge of the encouragement of our enemies by the general ex-
pression of their public journals, the President gave them more delight, hope,
and encouragement, by his single speech at Macon, than all the past acts
and public expressions of my life could have done, had I labored constantly
to aid and encourage them. He who can satisfy the enemy that two-thirds
of the men who compose our gallant armies are absent from their posts,
affords them delight and encouragement indeed, as they will no longer
doubt, if this be true, that the spirit of our people is broken, and that our
brave defenders can no longer be relied on to sustain our cause in the field.
All remember the mortification which this speech of the President caused to
the patriotic citizens of the Confederacy. If it had been true, surely it
should not have been publicly proclaimed by the President. But I am satis-
fied it was not true, and that, in making the statement, the President did
grievous injustice to the brave men who compose our gallant, self-sacrificing
armies.
"It has also been agreeable to you to speak of my action as springing from
a spirit of op/wsition to the Confederate Government, and animosity to the
Chief Magistrate. I have but a word of reply to this unjust and ungenerous
attack. Some men are unable to distinguish between opposition to a gov-
ernment and unwillingness blindly to endorse all the errors of an adminis-
tration, or to discriminate between loyalty to a cause and loyalty to their
master. My loyalty is only due to my country ; you can bestow yours where
your interest or inclinations may prompt.
" I do not consider that the point you attempt to make about the pay and
subsistence of the militia, while under the Confederate general commanding
the department, has in it even a show of plausibility. They were accepted
by him for the time as an organization, and, while under his control, he has
the absolute command of them, and the Governor of the State does not exer-
cise the slightest control over them. What possible pretext for saying that
he may not order this division subsisted and paid as well as any other division
under his command? There is just as much reason for saying that a divis-
ion of Georgians under Gen. Lee should not be subsisted and paid by the
Confederacy, while under his command, as that this division under Gen.
Hood should not be subsisted and paid while he commanded them. The
truth at the bottom of all this is so visible that it cannot be concealed even
by an attempt to muddy the water.
" I find the statement emphasized by you, that the Constitution of the Con-
federate States does not confer on the States the power to keep troops in time
342 COKRESPONDENCE OF GOV. BROWN
of war. As the States weie sovereign and possessed all power when they
formed the Constitution which gave life to the Confederate Government,
neither that Government nor the Constitution could confer any power on
the States. They retabied all that they did not cimfer upon it. But admit
your statement, and what follows? You were obliged to admit in the next
sentence that the States did reserve that power. Having reserved it, they
are certainly authorized to exercise it. As you admit, they not only reserved
the power, but the reservation naturally includes whatever is necessary to
accomplish the object of it. But you then attempt to explain it away, by
denying that the reservation means anything, and, in effect, contend that
the Confederate Government may take from the State the last one of the
troops which she has reserved the power to keep, without violating the re-
served rights of the State. In other words, the State has plainly reserved
the right to keep troops iu time of war when actually invaded. But this
right you, in effect, say is subordinate to the will of the President, who may
take the last one of them from her whenever he chooses to do so.
" According to your mode of reasoning, if a State or an individual dele-
gates certain powers to an agent, and reserves certain other powers, the re-
served powers are limited by and subordinate to the delegated powers, and
may be entirely destroyed by them when, in the opinion of the agent, this
is necessary to enable him to execute, to their fullest extent, the delegated
powers. In other words, the reserved powers are to be construed strictly, and
the delegated powers liberally, and the reserved are to yield to the delegated
whenever there is apparent conflict. I confess I had not understood this to
be the doctrine of the State Rights or Jeffersonian school. I had been
taught that the delegated powers are to be construed strictly, and in case of
a delegation of powers with certain reservations, that the delegated powers
are limited and controlled by the reserved powers. This well-established
rule is repudiated by you when it conflicts with the purposes of the Confed-
erate administration, and j'ou claim that the power reserved by the States to
keep troops iu time of war, when actually invaded, simply means that they
may keep them till the Confederate Executive chooses to call for and take
the last one of them out of their control,
"To justify all this, you are driven to the usual plea of necessity. You
say it was necessary that the whole militia of Georgia should be in Con-
federate service, and subject, not to my judgment or disposal, but to the
control of the constitutional commander-in-chief.
" I deny that the President is, or ever can be, without the consent of the
State, the constitutional commander-in-chief of the w/w/e militia of the State.
When we take the whole context together, the Constitution is plain upon
this point. lie is declared to be the commander-in-chief of the army and
navy of the Confederate States and of the militia of the several States when
called into actual service of the Confederate States.
" Congress has power to provide for calling forth the militia to execute the
AND THE SECRETARY OF WAR. 343
laws of the Confederate States, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions.
Congress has power to provide for organizing, arming and disciplining
the militia, and for governing such pari of them as may be employed in the
service of tlie Confederate States. Then comes the qualification. The
States reserve the right to keep troops in time of war, when actually invaded.
If she is not invaded, under provision made by Congress, they may be called
forth if the emergency requires it. If she is invaded, she may keep such
part of them as she thinks proper, under her reserved right, and they cannot
be taken without her consent. The whole case is in a nutshell. Congress
may provide for calling forth the militia, and for governing mchpart of them
as are employed in the service of the Confederate States. The President is,
for the time, commander-in-chief of ail who are so employed. And all may
be so employd, except such as the State determines to kerp, by virtue of her
reserved right in time of war, when actually invaded. These Congress has
no riglit to call forth, and no right to provide for governing; and of these
the President is not the constitutional commander-in-chief, but the Governor
of the State is, so long as the State keeps them, and she has an unquestion-
able right to kfiep them as long as the invasion of her territory lasts.
"This I understand to be the constitutional right of the State of Georgia.
By this, as her Executive, I stand, and regard with perfect indifference all
assaults upon either my loyalty or motives by those who deny this right, or
seek to wrest it from her to increase their own power or gratify their own
ambition.
" A word as to the use I shall make of this militia and of all the troops at
the command of the State. No sentence in my former letter is an 'incon-
siderate utterance.' No word in it justifies the construction that I will
array my State in ' armed antagonism against the Confederacy.' On the
contrary, I will use the troops tosupport and maintain all the just rights and
constitutional powers of the Confederacy to the fullest extent. No State is
truer to the C'nife'feraci/ than Georgia; and none will make greater sacrifices
to maintain its rights, its just powers, and its independence. The sacrifices
of her people at home, and the blood of her sons upon the battlefield, have
abundantly established this truti). Hut while I will employ all the force at
my command to maintain all the constitutional rights of the Confederacy
and of my State, I shall not hesitate to use tlie same force to protect the
same rights against external assaults and internal usurpations. Those who
imagine themselves to be the Confederacy, and consider only loyalty to
themselves as loyalty to it, and who recognize in neither the people nor the
State any rights which conflict with their purposes or future designs, doubt-
less see in this the ' foreshadowing of a guilty purpose.' It is, to say the
least of it, a fixed purpose.
•' It is not only my right, but my duty, to uphold the constitutional rights
and liberties of the people of Georgia by force, if necessary, against usurpations
and abuses of power by the central Government. The militia is, under the
344 CORRESPONDENCE OF GOV. BROWN
Constitution, one of the proper instrumentalities for that purpose. There
is scarcely a single provision in the Constitution for the protection of life,
liberty, or property in Georgia, th;it has not been and is not now ronstautly
violated by the Confederate Government through its officers and agents.
"It has been but a short time since one of the stores of the State of Georgia,
containing property, in the peaceable possession of the State, v^'as forcibly
entered by a Confederate officer and the property taken therefrom by force.
1 had no militia present at the time to repel this invasion of the rii^hts of
the sovereign State, but should have had them there soon if the property had
not been restored.
" A single Confederate provost marshal in Georgia admits that thirty
citizens and soldiers have been shot by his guard, without his right to shoot
citizens being questioned till witliin the last few days, when he was greatly
enraged that a true bill for murder siiould have been found by a grand jury
against one of them for shooting down a citizen in the streets who offended
him by questioning his authority over him. Every citizen in the State, both
man and woman, is arrested in the cars, streets and highways, who presumes
to travel without a pass. They are arrested without law, and imprisoned at
pleasure of Government officials. The houses, lands, and effects of the people
of Georgia are daily seized and appropriated to the use of the Governtnent
or its agents without the shadow of law, without just compensation, and in
defiance of the decision of the supreme judicial tribune of the State; and
her officers of justice are openly resisted by the officers of the Confederate
States. The property of the families of soldiers now under arms to sustain
the Confederacy is forcibly taken from them without hesitation, and appro-
priated in many cases without compensation.
" In tliis state of things the militia are necessary to uphold the civil tribu-
nal of the State, and will be used for that purpose whenever the proper call
is made by the proper authorities.
"No military authority. State or Confederate, can be lawfully used for
any other purpose than to uphold the civil authorities, and so much of it as
the Constitution of my country has confided to my hands shall be used for
that purpose, whether civil society, its Constitution and laws shall be in-
vaded from without or from within. Measured by your standard, this is
doubtless disloyalty. Tested by mine, it is a high duty to my country.
"Respectfully, etc.,
"Joseph E. Brown."
AND THE SECRETARY OF WAR. 345
"CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA,
War Department, Richmond. Va., December 13, 18Gi.
}
" HIS EXCELLENCY JOSEPH E. BROWN,
Governor of Georgia,
Macon, Ga.
" Sir: — Your letter of the 1 1th ult. has been received. In accordance with
the rule I have prescribed to myself in my correspondence with you, I shall
avoid all notice of the observations in your letter which do not in my opin-
ion form matter proper for official communication ; and therefore much of
your letter will have no response.
"An act of Congress of the 27th of February, 1861, provided: ' That to
enable the Government of the Confederate States to maintain its jurisdiction
over all questions of peace and war, and to provide for the public defence,
the President be, and he is hereby authorized and directed to assume control
of all military operations in every State, liaviug reference to or connection
with questions between said States, or any of them, and powers foreign to
them.' On the 6th March of the sanje year, they empowered the President
' to employ the militia, military and naval forces of the Confederate States
to repel invasion, maintain the rightful possession of the Confederate States
in every portion of the territory belonging to each State, and to secure the
public tranquillity and independence against threatened inVtasion.' These acts
of Congress do not exceed the competency of that body under the Constitu-
tion. They confer plenary powers upon the President to employ all the
military power of the Confederate States to meet the extraordinary eTnergen-
cies that might arise, and which were then foreshadowed. You do not deny
the existence of the emergency anticipated and provided for by Congres-'^.
Y'du simply contend that you sliould employ the militia instead of the Presi-
dent. That you should conduct some military operations, rather than the
President, and that Congress judged unwisely in confiding power to him,
rather than to yourself. Jn my judgment, these acts of Congress bind you,
both as a citizen and an officer, and you owe prompt, cordial, and unhesitating
obedience to them.
" In stating the parallel case of the conduct of the refractory Governors of
Massachusetts and Connecticut in the war with Great Britain, during the
administration of Mr. Madison, I was aware that the former had the support
of the opinion of the judges of that State, as contained in a letter addressed
to him, and as cited by you. They had also the support of their State Leg-
islatures and of the resolves of the Hartford Convention, composed of dele-
gates from those and other States. The authority of these different public
officers and agencies support your Excellency; but the judicial opinions of
the supreme court of New Y'ork, and of the sujireme court of the United
States, as rendered in the line of their duty in cases before them, and the
general sentiment of the people and the uniform action of the authorities of
loyal States, afford no such support.
346 CORRESPONDENCE OF GOV. BROWN
"Maj. Gen. Cobb informs the Department that he has made a patisfactory
adjustment of this difficulty, and I dismiss the subject without fuither
remark.
'■ In the summer of 18G3, it became apparent that unless the po|)ulation of
the diffen-nt States who were not embraced in the acts of Congn-ss of the
16th April and 27th J^eptember, 18G'2, providing for the pul>]io defence,
usually termed Conscription Acts, were orpjanized for service, that the country
would be exposed to frequent and injurious incursions from the em-my, by
which it would be devastated before the means of defence could be carried
to the place of invasion. A proposal for the organization was prepared and
communicated to the Governors of all the States. This plan was to organize
all the non-conscript popidation in companies under the acts of Congress to
provide for the local defence or special service. These acts provided only
for v.pluntary enlistments, and an alternative, or rather an auxiliary propo-
sition, was presented to facilitate the accomplishment of this leading and
prominent object.
"I addressed you on the 6th of June, 18G3, a letter on the subject, a tele-
gram on the 12th, and a second letter on the 19th of the same month. The
general orders of the department, embodying its views as to the nature of
these volunteer organizations, and disclosing the details of the measure, were
published by the Adjutant and Inspector-General, the 22d June, 1863.
These orders required that those companies should be formed for service
during the war ; that they were not to be called into service except in cases
of emergency ; that they were not to be employed beyond the limits of the
State ; that when the emergency terminated they were to be disnn'ssed to
their homes ; that service in those companies would excuse from service as
militia ; that those companies were preferred to militia organizations ; that
they were to be armed by the Confederate States as far as necessary, and
were to be paid by them while in service. A copy of this order is> enclosed.
" These views were disclosed in the letters I have before referred to. The
extracts you have made from them to defend your conduct do not represent
the views of the department fairly.
"In my letter of tiie 6th of June, I state the necessity for organization of
the non-conscript population ; the many and grave objections to the use of
the militia; the su])eriority of the system of defence proposed by volinitary
organizations for home defence, and the motives that might be addre.ssed to
the people to adopt that mode of defence. I state in that letter that : ' For
this (the organization^ the legislation of Congress has made a full provision
by two laws, one entitled An Act to provide for Local Defence and Special
Service, approved August 21, 1861; the other entitled An Act to authorize
the formation of Volunteer Companies for Local Defence, approved October
13, 1862. to which your attention is invited, and of which, as they are
brief, copies are appended. Under the former of these, if organizations
could be effected with the limitations presented in the muster rolls of service
AND THE SECRETARY OF WAR. 347
only at home, or at specified points of importance within the particular
State, they would be admirably adapted to obtain the desired ends of calling
out tho-e best qualified for the servioL- ; of employing them only when and
so long as they might be needed; of having them animated with esprit du
corps, reliant on each other and their selected oflicers, and of thus securing
the largest measure of activity and efficiency, perhaps, attainable from other
than permanent soldiers. After ihe most .active and least needed portion of
the reserves were embodied under (he former law, the latter would allow
smaller organizations with more limited range of service for obj' cts of police
and the pressing contingencies of neighborhood defence. Could these laws
be generally acted on, it is believed as full organization of tlie reserve popu-
lation would be secured for casual needs as would be practicable.'
" I closed that letter by saying : ' I am instructed by the President in his
name to make on you a requisition for five thousand men, to be furnished by
your State for service therein, unless in. the intermediate t'me a volunteer
force, organized under the law for local defence and special service, of at least
an equal number be mustered and reported as subject to liis call for service
tvilhin your State.'
" In my telegram of the 12th, I say : ' Your assurance of co-operation is
gratifying. Organizations under the law of the Provisional Congress are
preferred, because of their longer terms of duration and greater adaptation
for ready call on temporary service and then for dismissal to their ordinary
pursuits.'
"In my letter of the 19th of June, I repeated the arguments in favor of
organizations for local defence in preference to ' militia organizations or
organizations on a basis similar to the militia for a limited period of service.'
I stated to you that ' I did not suppose there would be such difiiculties,
delays, or confusion as you anticipated ; that the process of forming the or-
ganizations is very simple and familiar to your people as having been gen-
erally adopted in volunteering for the provisional army. There will be no
occasion to send on to the department here anything but the muster rolls,
which, under the regulations to he isswd, may be verified by a judge, justice,
or colonel of militia. I think, with deference to your opinion, the whole
matter of prompt and easy accomplishment.'
" The regulations referred to were published on the 22d of June, 18G3.
They declare their object to be to afford ' instructions as to the method-by
which such organizations may be made, and the privileges tliey may claim ; '
and with tiiese regulations the Act of Congress of August 21, 18G1, was
published, which authorized the Presiilent to accept the services of volun-
teers of such kind and in such proportion as he may deem expedient, to
serve for such time as he may prescribe, for the defence of exposed places or
localities, or such special service as he may deem expedient.
" The general features of tliese regulations I have already stated. They
define with exactness the conditions as to time of enlistment, the place of
348 CORRESPONDENCE OF GOV. BROWN
service, the duration of their special and particular service upon the Presi-
dential call. These were the organizations that you were expected to form,
and you seem to have entirely overlooked or forgotten the duty that you
undertook to fulfill.
" It is not pretended by you that you carried into effect this plan for the
organization of the State reserves, and that your promised co-operation was
unproductive of the results anticipated from it. You followed the suggestions
of your own mind, and did not act, and, so far as this department knows,
did not attempt to act comformably to the views presented to you.
"I made no complaint of your failure to do this, nor was the failure made
the subject of any observation until you assumed the ground of being the
injured party, from which you railed at the President and the department,
as wanting in faith to you ; while the fact was, if there was any want of
faith or breach of duty, you alone were the guilty party. I recur to the
subject now simply to correct the misrepresentation of the conduct of the
department by your garbled extracts from its correspondence — extracts
which do not exhibit fairly the subject under consideration. I abstain now
from imputing your conduct to bad faith to the department, in repelling the
wanton and reckless assault upon the integrity of the administration of this
department.
" Your remarks upon the patriotism and services of the people of Georgia
will have no contradiction from me. 1 fully appreciate both. I have not
believed that they could be seduced from their fidelity to the Confederate
States or their duties under their Constitution. I have not supposed that
they could be betrayed into any desertion of the common cause. The unan-
imous voice of the Legislature of the State was not required to assure me of
their truth and loyalty. It has but confirmed the opinion that the seeds of
baleful jealousies, suspicions, and irritation, that have so industriously been
scattered among them, have been wholly unproductive of the fruit antici-
pated.
" It is to be hoped in the future that all the energy that has been thus era-
ployed will be diverted to the legitimate object of achieving the independence
of the Confederate States, securing the peace and tranquillity of the Confed-
eracy, and promoting thereby the true greatness of Georgia.
" Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
" James A. Seddon,
" Secretary of War."
"EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, }^
Macon, Ga., Jan. 6, 18(j5. \
" HON. JAMES A. SEDDOX, SECRETARY OF WAR :
" Sir: — It becomes my duty to notice your communication of 13th December,
which reached me a few days since.
" After citing the Acts of Congress of 28th February and the 6th March,
AND THE SECRETARY OF WAR. 349
1861, conferring power upon the President to assume control of military
operations in the States and to call forth the militia, etc., you declare that
Congress in passing these Acts did not exceed its competency under the Con-
stitution, and you then insist on a construction of these Acts which denies
the right reserved by the States to keep troops ia time of war, and which
confers upon the President the power to call upon one State for a class of
her population which are not subject under any law of Congress to do mil-
it:iry duty, and for which he makes no similar requisition upon any other
State.
"The Acts which you quote are not properly susceptible of any such con-
struction as you are obliged to place upon them to make tliem serve your
purpose. If they were, there could be no doubt upon the mind of any lawyer
who understands the rudiments of constitutional law that Congress had no
power or authority to pass them. No candid lawyer will insist for a moment
that an Act of Congress can take from the States the right which they have
plainly reserved in the Constitution to keep troops in time of war, or that the
President has any power or control over any troops which a State, may so
keep, or that he can justly and legally make requisition for them, or that he
has any legal or just grounds of complaint if a State refuses to turn them
over to him if he should transcend his legal authority by making the requi-
sition. Nor will any lawyer insist that the President has any power to make
requisition for militia which Congress has not made provision for ' organizing,'
or for men or boys not subject to militia duty under the laws of Congress.
As these Acts of Congress could confer upon the President no powers which
are denied to him by the Constitution, and as his late requisition upon the
Executive of this State was in clear violation of her reserved rights under
the Constitution, I am surprised that you should attempt to justify this
usurpation of undelegated powers by a resort to congressional action as
directory to the President to violate tiie rights of the States.
" In your former letter you declared that my refusal to fill this requisition
of the President was analogous in ' all particulars ' to the conduct of the
Governors of Massachusetts and Connecticut in the last war with Great
Britain in refusing to fill the requisition made upon them by the President
of the United States. In my answer, I showed too conclusively for reply,
that the cases were not analogous in any particular. Without attempting to
make good your assertion, or to controvert a single position in my argument,
or to trace the analogy in a single particular, you again allude to the subject
in your last letter by saying: *In stating the parallel case of the conduct of
the refractory Governors of Massachusetts and Connecticut,' etc. Xow no
one knew better than yourself that the cases were in no degree parallel and
that you could neither trace the parallel lines nor point out the analogy.
" To avoid a misstatement contained in your former letter that ' the judicial
tribunals determined adversely to the pretensions of these Governors,' you
say you were aware that the former (the Governor of Massachusetts) had.
350 CORRESPONDENCE OF GOV. BROWN
the support of the opinion of the judgf^s of that State and of the Legislatures
of those States, etc. ; and that the authority of tiiese supports me in my posi-
tion. Here again you are as incorrect a^ I have shown you to be in ahnost
every important statement which has been made by yoii. Tliere is nothing
in the opinion of the judges of the supreme court of Massachusetts sustain-
ing the Governor of that State which gives the slightest support to my posi-
tion, or that has the least bearing upon the controversy between us. What
were tlie points decided by that opinion of the court? They were substan-
tially the following :
" 1. That when the President made a requisition upon the Governor of a
State for tlie militia to repel threatened invasion, it was the right of the
Governor to judge whether the emergency existed. lie decided that it did not.
"2. That when the militia were called out under a requisition from the
President, no Federal officer but the President in person had the right to
command them. These were the positions of the Governor of Massachusetts,
and the opinion of the judges sustained him.
"Neither of these questions has arisen in this discussion. I have not
denied the existence of the exigency, but foresaw it and had the reserve
militia in the field in battle with the enemy months before the President seems
to have seen it, at least months before he realized it to an extent to cause
him to make the requisition.
" I have not raised the question as to the right of a Confederate officer
other than the President in person, to command this militia so called out by
me while in service. On the contrary, I had placed them under the com-
mand of a Confederate general long before the requisition was made.
With these facts before you, a little reflection cannot fail to show you how
much mistaken you are when you make the assertion that the decision of the
judges of the supreme court of Massachusetts, or of the Legislatures of
those two States, sustains my course or any position I have taken. As there
is neither nnalogy nor parallel heiw^en the cases cited by you and my own
case, no decision sustaining the Governors in those cases can either sustain
or condemn my course upon an entirely different state of facts and circum-
stances.
" But you say the judicial opinions of the supreme court of Xew York, and
of the supreme court of the United States as rendered in the line of their
duty, afford no such support. As you have not shown how the action of the
Governors of Massachusetts and Connecticut, or the correctness of their
position could have come judicially before the supreme court of New York,
or the supreme court of the United States; and as you have not been able to
cite any case in which the question of the conduct of those Governors was
ever before either of said courts, I am left to suppose that you are, as I have
shown you to be in so many instances, again unfortunate in your statement
of facts, and that in attempting to sustain an erroneous statement in your
other letter, you have added another to former mistakes.
AND THE SECRETARY OF WAR. 351
"As an excuse for dismissing the subject without further attempt to sus-
tain your position, you remark that Major-General Cobb informs the depart-
ment that he has made a satisfactory adjustment of this difficulty. While
there has been perfect harmony between General Cobb and myself in mili-
tary matters from the commencement of Sherman's advance upon Atlanta
to the present time, as there has been between Generals Johnston, Hood,
Beauregard and mjself ; there has been no adjustment whatever between me
and General Cobb of what you are pleased to terra ' this difficulty.' I have
neither by word nor act done anything to recognize the right of the Presi-
dent to make this requisition, or to admit the obligation of the Governor to
fill it. I have stood in reference to General Cobb, as T have towards you and
the President, upon the reserved rights of the State, and have refused to re-
linquisih the control of the State over her reserved militia while she deter-
mines to keep them, or to fill a requisition which the President had no right to
make. I am happy to find that upon reflection you seem to see your error,
and are prepared to accept this as a satisfactory adjustment of a controversy
which you have unjustly provoked, and in which you cannot sustain yourself
upon any known principle of reason or law.
"You devote a greater part of your letter to another attempt to justify
your bad faith to the Georgia troops called out under the President's requisi-
tion of 6th June, 1863, and to prove, contrary to the plain language of the
requisition, that they were called for during the war. You complain of what
you call my ' garbled extracts,' and you quote extensively from the requisition,
but you are particularly careful to so ' garble ' your own extracts as not to
quote that essential part of it twice stated in the letter, as I have already
shown, that they were required only for six months. It was upon this requisi-
tion, with the two Acts of Congress, which you sent with it as the guide for
my conduct, that I promised co-operation with you in the organization. The
promise was redeemed both in letter and spirit, and your call for eight thou-
sand men (not Jive thousind as you now erroneously state in your last letter)
was met with more than double the number required, organized in strict ac-
cordance with the plain language of the requisition and the Acts of Congress
on that subject.
" As candor and truth at least are expected of one occupying your posi-
tion, it is painful to witness the shifts to which you resort to do injustice to
my State, and to misrepresent the conduct of her Executive in a matter
where he more than doubly filled your requisition.
" I am now favored by you with a copy of a general order issued by Adju-
tant-General Cooper weeks after the requisition was made, which I do not
recollect that I ever saw till I received your letter, and you complain that I
did not carry out your views as expressed in that order. I obey no orders
from your department; nor was this order furnished to me when you made
the requisition, or during the organization of the troops, with even a request
that I conform to it. I was asked by you to organize the troops in accord-
352 COREESPONDENCE OF GOV. BROWN
ance witli your letter containing the requisition and the two Acts of Congress,
of wliich you enclosed copies for six months' service, with the pledges con-
tained in your letter to which I referred in my last letter, that they should
only be called out for sudden emergencies, etc. This I did on my part, and
you refused to redeem the pledges made on your part. This is the whole
case, and I here dismiss this part of the subject with my regrets tliat justice
to myself and the large number of citizens of my State who suffered unneces-
sarily by your action, has made it a duty for me to expose Jrour bad faith
and the misstatements to which you have resorted to sustain an interpretation
of your requisition wliich its plain language unquestionably precludes.
"By the expression in your letter that: 'It (the unanimous voice of the
Legislature of tliis State) has but confirmed the opinion that the seeds of
baleful jealousies, suspicions and irritation that have so industriously been
scattered among them (the people) have been wholly unproductive of the
fruits anticipated,' I am left to conclude that in your disingenuous effort by
insinuation to call in question my motives in pro/esting ngainst the Presi-
dent's usurpations and abuses of power, you, as is your habit, base your as-
sertion upon an assumption of facts which does not exist. The Legislature
of tliis State at the late session passed no resolutions, and expressed no
unanimous voice upon any question connected witli the conduct of the Ad-
ministration of which you are a member, nor did they utter in its behalf
any voice of approbation.
" While the people of this State are true and loyal to our cause, they are
not unmindful of the great principles of Constitutional Liberty and State
Sovereignty upon which we entered into this struggle, and they will not hold
guiltless those in power who, while charged with the guardianship of the
liberties of the people, have subverted and trampled personal liberty under
foot, and disregarded the rights of private property, and the judicial sanc-
tions, by which, in all free governments, they are protected.
" The course pursued by the administration towards Georgia, in her late
hour of extreme peril, has shown so conclusively as to require no further ar-
gument or illustration, the wisdom of the reservation made by the States, in
the Constitution, of the right to keep troops in time of war. Georgia has
furnished over one hundred thousand of her gallant sons to the armies of
the Confederacy. The great body of these men was organized into regi-
ments and battalions of infantry and artillery, which have been sustained
by recruits from home, from month to month, to the extent of our ability.
Those who survive of these regiments and battalions have become veterans
in the service, who, if permitted, would have returned to their State, and
rendered Sherman's march across her territory and the escape of his army
alike impossible. I asked that this be allowed, if assistance could not be
otherwise afforded. It was denied us, and the State has been passed over
by a large army of the enemy. Hundreds of miles of her railroads have been
for the present rendered useless. A broad belt of her territory nearly four
AND THE SECRETARY OF WAR. 353
hundred miles in length, has been devastated. Within this belt most of the
public property, including several court houses with the public records, and
a vast amount of private property, including many dwellings, gin houses,
much cotton, etc., Iiave been destroyed. The city of Atlanta, with several
of the villages of the State, has been burnt ; the capital has been occupied
and desecrated by the enemy, and Savaimah, the seaport city of the State,
is now in his possession. Daring the period of Sherman's march from At-
lanta to Milledgeville, there was not one thousand men of all the veteran
infantry regiments and battalions of Georgians, now in Confederate service,
upon the soil of this State. Nor did troops from otlier States fill their
places.
" Thus ' abandoned to her fate ' by the President, Georgia's best reliance
was her reserve militia and State line, whom she had organized and still
keeps, as by the Constitution she has a right to do. Without them, much
more property must have been destroyed, and the city of Macon, so impor-
tant to the State and Confederacy, must have shared the fate of Atlanta and
Savannah, while Augusta, with the small Confederate force by which she
was saved, divided with Macon, must also have fallen.
" These troops whom Georgia keeps have not only acted with distinguished
gallantry upon many bloody battle-fields upon the soil of their own State,
but they have, when an important service could be rendered by them,
marched into the interior of other States. The noble conduct of the Troup
County militia in their march to Pollard, Alabama, to aid in the protection
of the people and property of that State against the devastations of the
enemy, and the heroic valor displayed by Maj.-Gen. G. W. Smith and
part of his command then with him at Honey Hill, in South Carolina, wliere
he won — with the Georgia militia, her State line and a small number of
gallant Confederate troops, most of whom were Georgians — one of the most
signal victories of the war in proportion to the number engaged, fully attest
the correctness of my assertion in their behalf.
'• In view of these facts, with the late bitter experience of the people of
this State fresh in his recollection, the Georgia statesman must indeed be a
blind worshipper of the President who would advocate the policy of turning
over to his control, to lie carried out of the State at his bidding, old men and
boys not subject under the laws of Congiess to military service, and of a
class not required by him of any other State.
" I cannot close this communication without noticing certain expressions
in your letter which are not unfrequently used by persons in authority at
Kichmond, such as ' refractory Governors,' ' loyal States,' etc. Our people
have become accustomed to these imperial utterances from those who wield
the central despotism at Washington, but such expressions are so utterly at
variance with the principles upon which we entered into this contest in 1861
that it sounds harshly to our ears to have the officers of a government, which
is the agent or creature of the States, discussing the loyalty and didoyalty
23
354 COKRESPONDENCE OF GOV. BR0W:N".
of the sovereign States to their central agent — the loyalty of the creator to
the creature — which lives and moves and has its being only at the will of the
States ; and to hear their praise of the Governors of sovereign States for
their subserviency, or their denunciation of those not subservient as ' refrac-
tory.' If our liberties are lost the fatal result will not be properly chargeable
to disloyal States or ' refractory Governors ; ' but it will grow out of the be-
trayal by those high in Confederate authority of the sacred principles of the
Constitution which they have sworn to defend.
" Had some officials labored as successfully for the public good as they
have assiduously to concentrate all power in the Confederate Government
and to place the liberty and property of every citizen of the Confederacy sub-
ject to the caprice and control of the President, the country would not have
been doomed to witness so many sad reverses. Nor would we now be bur-
dened to support the vast hoard of supernumerary officers and political favor-
ites, who are quartered upon us to eat out our substance while they avoid
duty and danger in the field, having little other duty to perform but to en-
dorse, indiscriminately and publicly, by newspaper communications and
otherwise, every act of the President whether riglit or wrong ; and to recon-
cile the people by every means in their power to the constant encroachments
which are made upon their ancient usages, customs, and liberties.
" If all these favorites of power who are able for active duty and whose
support in the style in which they live, while all around them is misery and
want, costs the people millions of dollars, were sent to the field and compelled
to do their part in battle, the President would have no reason to make illegal
requisitions upon this State for her old men and boys, who are not subject to
his control under any law. State or Confederate ; but he would soon be able
by heavy reinforcements to fill the depleted ranks of the armies of the Con-
federacy. As the President is clothed with all the power necessary to com-
pel these political favorites to shoulder arms and aid in driving back the
invader, the subject is respectfully commended to your consideration as well
worthy of energetic action.
" I am, very respectfully,
" Your obedient servant,
"Joseph E. Brown."
. CHAPTER XI.
Correspondence of President Da.vis and Governor
Brown upon Conscription.
In the spring of 1862, upon the subject of raising
troops, there sprung up a fundamental difference of
opinion between President Davis and Governor Brown.
So long as volunteer forces were raised in the States by
the authority of the President, or he made requisition on
the Governor for them, there was no serious or exciting
issue between them. But when, as will appear, in order
to force the citizen soldiers of other States, which, unlike
Georgia, appeared to be tardy in responding to his calls,
the Congress, at the request of the President, attempted
to place all within given ages subject to summary con-
scription, the execution of the law within this State
gave rise to a severely critical correspondence. It relates
to and contains the matters that tended in no small part,
in the sequel, to the failure of the Confederacy. It was
a difference in opinion between men who were each in-
tent on independence for the South, which will appear in
the letters of each. To avoid all appearance of unfair-
ness, we dispense with abbreviations, and set forth their
entire letters.
" EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, )
MiLLKDGEViLLE, Ga., April 22, 1862. 3
" HIS EXCELLENCY JEFFERSON DAVIS,
Richmond, Virginia:
"Dear Sir : — So soon as I received from the Secretary of AVar ofRcial notice
of the passage by Congress of tlie Conscription Act, placing in the military
service of the Confederate States all white men between the ages of 18 and
356 CORRESPONDENCE OF PRESIDENT DAVIS
35 years, I saw that it was impossible for me longer to retain in the field the
Georgia State troops, without probable collision and conflict with the Con-
federate authorities, iu the face of the enemy. I, therefore, acquiesced in
the necessity which compelled me to transfer the State forces to the com-
mand of the Confederate general at Savannah, and tendered to General
Lawton, who commands the Military District of Georgia, not only the con-
scripts in the State army, but also those not conscripts, for the unexpired
term of their enlistment. General Lawton accepted the command with the
assurance that he would interfere as little as possible with the company and
regimental organizations of the troops. This assurance, I trust, the Gov-
ernment will permit him to carry out in the same spirit of liberality in which
it was given. If the State regiments are broken up and the conscripts be-
longing to them forced into other organizations against their consent it will
have a very discouraging effect. If the regiments and companies were
preserved, and permission given to the officers to fill up their ranks by re-
cruits, there would be no doubt of their ability to do so ; and I think
they have a just right to expect this privilege.
" Georgia has promptly responded to every call made upon her by you for
troops, and has always given more than you asked ; i-lie now has about
60,0U0 in the field. Had you called upon her Executive for 20,000 more,
(if her just quota.) they would have been furnished without delay. The plea
of necessity, so far, at least, as this State is concerned, cannot be set up in
defence of the Conscription Act.
^' When the Government of the United States disregarded and attempted
to trample upon the rights of the States, Georgia set its power at defiance
and seceded from the Union, rather tiian submit to the consolidation of all
power iu the hands of the central or Federal government.
" The Conscription Act not only puts it in the power of the Executive of
the Confederacy to disorganize her troops, which she was compelled to call
into the field, for her own defence, in addition to her just quota, because of
the neglect of the Confederacy to place sufficient troops upon her coast for
her defence — which would liave required less than half the number she has
sent to the field — but also places it in his power to destroy her State gov-
ernment by disbanding her law-making power.
" The Constitution of this State makes every male citizen who has attained
the age of 21 years eligible to a seat in the House of Representatives of the
General Assembly, and every one who has attained the age of 25 eligible
to a seat in the Senate. There are a large number of the members of the
General Assembly between the ages of 18 and 35. They are white citizens
of ilie Confederate States, and there is no statute in the State, and I am
aware of none in the Confederate States code, which exempts them from
military duty. They, therefore, fall within the provisions of the Conscription
Act. It may become necessary for me to convene the General Assembly in
extra session ; or, if not, the regular session will commence the first Wednes-
AND GOV. BROWN UPON CONSCRIPTION. 357
day in November. When the members meet at the Capitol, if not sooner,
they might be cUiimed as conscripts by a Confederate officer, and arrested
with a view to carry them to some remote part of the Confederacy, as re-
cruits, to fill up some company now in service. They have no military
power, and could only look to the Executive of the State for military pro-
tection ; and I cannot hesitate to say that, in such case, I should use all the
remaining military force of the State in defence of a co-ordinate constitu-
tional branch of the government. I can, therefore, permit no enrolment of
the members of the General Assembly under the Conscription Act. The
same is true of the judges of the supreme and superior courts, should any
of them fall within the ages above mentioned ; and of the secretaries of the
Executive departments ; the heads and necessary clerks of the other de-
partments of the State government ; and the tax collectors and receivers
of the different counties, who are now in the midst of their duties, and are
not permitted by law to supply substitutes, and whose duties must be per-
formed, or the revenues of the State cannot be collected. The same remark
applies to the staff of the Commander-in-Chief. There is no statute exempt-
ing them from military duty, for the reason that they are at all times sub-
ject to the command of the Governor, and are not expected to go into the
ranks.
" The State's quartermaster, commissarj', ordnance and engineers' depart-
ments fall within the same rule. The major-generals, brigadier-generals,
and other officers of the militia, would seem to be entitled to like consider-
ation.
"Again, the Western & Atlantic Railroad is the property of the State,
and is under the control and management of the Governor. It is a source of
revenue to the State and its successful management is a matter of great
military importance, both to the State and the Confederacy. I now have an
efficient force of officers and workmen upon the road, and must suspend opera-
tions if all between 18 and 35 are taken away from the road.
"I would also invite your attention to the further fact that the State
owns and controls the Georgia Military Institute at Marietta, and now has
in the Institute over 125 cadets, a large proportion of whom are within
the age of conscripts. If they are not exempted, this most important insti-
tution is broken up. I must not omit, in this connection, the students of
the State University, and of the other colleges of the State. These valuable
institutions of learning must also be suspended if the law is enforced against
the students.
" I would, also, respectfully call your attention to the further fact that in
portions of our State where the slave population is heavy, almost the entire
white male population capable of bearing arms except the overseers on the
plantations are now in the military service of the Confederacy. Most of
these overseers are over 18 and under 35. If they are carried to the field
thousands of slaves must be left without overseers, and their labor not only
358 CORRESPONDENCE OF PRESIDENT DAVIS
lost at a time when there is great need of it in the production of provisions
and supplies for our armies, but the peace and safety of helpless women and
children must be imperilled for want of protection aga'ust bands of idle
slaves, who must be left to roam over the country witliout restraint.
" It is also worthy of remark, that a large proportion of our best mechanics,
and of the persons engaged in the various branches of manufacturing now
of vital importance to the success of our cause, are within the ages which
subject them to the provisions of the Conscription Act.
" My remark that I cannot permit the enrohnent of such State officers as
are necessary to the existence of the State government, and the working
of the State road, does not, of course, apply to persons engaged in the other
useful branches of industry considered of paramount importance, but I
must ask, in justice to the people of this State, that such exemptions
among these classes be made as the public necessities may require.
"As you are well aware, the military operations of the Government cannot
be carried on without the use of all our railroads, and the same necessity
exists for the exemption of all other railroad officers and workmen which ex-
ists in the case of the State road.
" There are doubtless other important interests not herein enumerated
which will readily occur to you, which must be kept alive or the most serious
consequences must ensue.
" The Constitution gives to Congress the power to provide for organizing,
arming, and disciplining the militia, and for governing such part of them as
may be employed in the service of the Confederate States, reserving to the
States, respectively, the appointment nf the officers, and the authority of training
the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress. The Conscrip-
tion Act gives the President the power to enroll the entire militia of the
States between 18 and 35, and t;ikes from the States their constitutional
right to appoint the officers and to train the militia.
" While this Act does not leave to the States the appointment of a single
officer to command the militia emploj'edin service of the Con Federate States
under its provisions, it places it in the power of the President to take a
major-general of the militia of a State, if he is not 35 years of age, and
place him in the ranks of the Confederate States army, under the command of
a 3d lieutenant appointed by the President, and to treat him as a deserter if
he refuses to obey the call and submit to the command of the subaltern
placed over him.
*' I do not wish to be understood, in any portion of this letter, to refer to the
intentions of the President, but only to the extraordinary powers given him
by the Act.
"This Act not only disorganizes the military system of all the States, but
consolidates almost the entire military power of the States in the Confederate
Executive with the appointment of the officers of the militia, and enables him
at his pleasure to cripple or destroy the civil government of each State, by
1
AND GOV. BROWK UPON" CONSCKIPTION. 359
arresting and carrying into the Confederate service the oflBcers charged by
the State Constitution with the administration of the State government.
" I notice by a perusal of the Conscription Act that the President may, with
the consent of the Governors of the respective States, employ State officers in
the enrolment of the conscripts. While I shall throw no obstacle in the
way of the general enrolment of persons embraced within the Act, except as
above stated, I do not feel that it is the duty of the Executive of a State to
employ actively the officers of the State in the execution of a lavr which vir-
tually strips the State of her constitutional military powers, and, if fully ex-
ecuted, destroys the legislative department of her government, making even
the sessions of her General Assembly dependent upon the w'illof the Confed-
erate Executive. I therefore respectfully decline all connection with the pro-
posed enrolment, and propose to reserve the question of the coustitutionality
of the Act, and its binding force upon the people of this State, for their con-
sideration at a time when it may less seriously embarrass the Confederacy in
the prosecution of the war.
" You will much oblige by informing me of the extent to which j'ou pro-
pose making exemptions, if any, in favor of the interests above mentioned,
and such others as you may consider of vital importance. The question is
one of great interest to our people, and they are anxious to know your pleas-
ure in the premises.
" Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
"Joseph E. Brown."
"Richmond, April 28, 1862.
" TO HIS EXCELLENCY JOSEPH E. BROWN,
" Governor of the State of Georgia :
" Dear Sir: — I have received your letter of the 22d inst., informing me of
your transfer of the Georgia State troops to General Lawton, commanding
Confederate forces at Savannah — suggesting that there be as little interfer-
ence as possible on the part of the Confederate authorities with the present
organization of those troops — and mentioning various persons and classes as
proper subjects for exemption from military service under the provisions of
an 'Act to further pi'ovide for the public defence,' approved on the 16th
inst.
" I enclose copies of the Act for receiving State troops tendered, as organized,
and of the Exemption Act. By the first, interference with the present or-
ganization of companies, squadrons, battalions, or regiments, tendered by
Governors of States, is specially disclaimed. By the other, exemptions are
made which explain (satisfactorily, I trust,) the policy of Congress with re-
gard to the persons and interests you specify.
" The constitutionality of the Act you refer to as the ' Conscription Bill '
is clearly not derivable from the power to call out the militia, but from that
360 CORRESPONDENCE OF PRESIDENT DAVIS
to raise armies. Witli regard to the mode of officering tlie troops now called
into the service of the Confederacy, the intention of Congress is to me, as to
you, to be learned from its Acts; and from the terms employed, it would
seem that the policy of election by the troops themselves is adopted by Con-
gi-ess.
" With great regard, very respectfully,
" Your obedient servant,
"Jeffehson Davis."
"EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, )
MiLLEDGEViLLE, Ga., May 9, 1862. j
"HIS EXCELLENCY JEFFERSON DAVIS:
" Dear Si-fi: — I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your favor of
the 28th iilt., in reply to my letter to you upon the subject of the Conscrip-
tion Act. I should not trouble you with a reply were it not that principles
are involved of the most vital character, upon the maintenance of which, in
my opinion, depend not only the rights and the sovereignty of the States, but
the very existence of State government.
"While I am always ha^jpy as an individual to render you any assistance
in my power in the discharge of the laborious and responsible duties assigned
you, and while T am satisfied you will bear testimony that I liave never, as
the Executive of this State, failed in a single instance to furnish all the men
and more than you have called for and to assist you with all tlie other means
at my command, I cannot consent to commit the State to a policy which is in
my judgment subversive of her sovereignty and at war with all the principles
for the support of which Georgia entered into this revolution.
" It may be said that it is no time to discuss constitutional questions in
the midst of revolution, and that State rights and State sovereignty must
yield for a time to tlie higher law of necessity. If this be a safe principle of
action it cannot certainly apply till the necessity is shown to exist ; and I
apprehend it would be a dangerous policy to adopt were we to admit that
those who are to exercise the power of setting aside the Constitution are to
be the judges of the necessity for so doing. But did the necessity exist in
this case? The Conscription Act cannot aid the Government in increasing
its supply of arms or provisions, but can only enable it to call a larger number
of men into the field. The difficulty has never been to get men. The States
have already furnished the Government more than it can arm, and have fiom
their own means armed and equipped very large numbers for it. Georgia
has not only furnished more than you have asked, and armed and equipped
from her own treasury a large proportion of those she has sent to the field,
but she stood ready to furnish promptly her quota (organized as the Consti-
tution provides) of any additional number called for by the President.
" I beg leave again to invite your attention to the constitutional question
involved. You say in your letter that the constitutionality of the Act is
AND GOV. BROWN UPON CONSCRIPTION. 3G1
clearly not derivable from the power to call out the militia but from that to
raise armies. Let us examine this for a moment. The* 8th section of the
1st Article of the Constitution defiueri the powers of Congress. Tiie 12th
paragraph of that section declares that Congress ' shall have power to raise
and support armies.' Paragraph fifteen gives Congress power to provide for
calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Confederate States, sup-
press insurrections, and repel invasions. Paragraph sixteen gives Congress
power to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia and for
governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of tlie Con-
federate States, reserving to the Slates respectively the appointment of the officers,
and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed
by Congress.
" These grants of power all relate to the same subject matter and are all
contained in the same section of the Constitution, and, by a well known rule
of construction, must be taken as a whole and construed together.
"It would seem quite clear that by the grant of power to Congress to raise
and support armies, without qualification, the framers of the Constitution
iuten<led the regular armies of the Confederacy and not armies composed
of the whole militia of all tiie States. If all the power given in the three
paragraphs above quoted is in fact embraced in the first in the general
words to raise armies, then the other two paragraphs are mere surplusage and
the framers of the Constitution were guilty of the folly of incorporating into
the instrument unmeaning phrases. When the States, by the 16th para-
graph, expressly and carefully reserved to themselves the right to appoint
the officers of the militia when employed in the service of the Confederate
State-^, it was certainly never contemplated that Congress had power, should
it become necessary, to call the whole militia of the State into the service of
the Confederacy, to direct that the President should appoint (commission^
all the officers of the militia thus called into service, under the general lan-
guage contained in the previous grant of power to raise armies. If this can
be done, the very object of the State in reserving the power of appointing
the officers is defeated, and that portion of the Constitution is not only a
nullity, but the whole military power of the States, and the entire control of
the militia, with the appointment of the officers, is vested in the Confederate
Government, whenever it chooses to call its own action 'raising an army,'
and not 'calling forth the militia.' Is it fair to conclude that the States
intended that their reserved powers should be defeated in a matter so vital
to constitutional liberty, by a mere change in the use of terms to designate
the act? Congress shall have power to raise armies. How shall it be done?
The answer is clear. In conformity to the provisions of the Constitution
which expressly provides that, when the militia of the States are called forth
to repel invasions, and employed in the service of the Confederate States,
(which is now the case.) the States shall appoint the officers. If this is
done, the army is raised as directed by the Constitution, and the reserved
362 CORRESPONDENCE OF PRESIDENT DAVIS
ri^ht-; of tlie States are respected; but if tlie officers of the militia, wlien
called forth, are appointed by the President, the army composed of the
militia is not raised as directed by the Constitution, and xha reserved rights
of the States are disregarded. The fathers of the Republic, in 1787, showed
the utmost solicitude on this very point. In the discussions in the convention
upon llie adoption of this paragraph in the Constitution of the United States,
•which we have copied and adopted without alteration, Mr, Ellsworth said:
'The whi)le authority over the militia ought by no means to be taken away
from the States, whose consequence would pine away to nothing after sucli
a sacrifice of power.' In explanation of the power which the committee,
wlio reported this paragraph to the convention, intended by it to delegate to
the general government, when the militia should be employed in the service
of that government, Mr. King, a member of the committee, said: 'By
organizing, the committee meant proportioning the officers and men; by
arming, specifying the kind, size and calibre of arms; by disciplining, pre-
scribing the manual exercise, evolutions, etc.
"Mr. Gerry objected to the delegation of the power, even with this ex-
planation, and said : ' This power in the United States, as explained, is mak-
ing the States drill sergeants.' He had as lief let the citizens of Massa-
chusetts be disarmed, as to take the command from the States and subject
them to the General Legislature.
"Mr. Madi.son observed that 'arming, as explained, did not extend to
furnishing arms, nor the term disciplining, to penalties and courts-martial for
enforcing them.
" After the adoption by the convention of the first part of the clause, Mr.
Madison moved to amend the next part of it, .so as to read 'reserving to the
States respectively the appointment of the officers under tlie rank of general
officers.'
" Mr. Sherman considered this as absolutely inadmissible. He said that
* if the people .should be .so far asleep as to allow the most influential officers
of the militia to be appninted by tlie general government, every man of dis-
cernment would rouse them by sounding the alarm to them.'
" Upon Mr. Madison's proposition, Mr. Gerry said : ' Let us at once
destroy the State governments, have an Executive for life, or hereditary, and
a proper Senate, and then there would be some consistency in giving full
powers to the general government; but as the States are not to be abolished,
he wondered at the attempts that were made to give powers inconsistent
■with their existence. He warned the convention against pushing the experi-
ment too far.'
" Mr. Madi.-^on's amendment to add to the clause the words ' under the rank
of general officers,' was voted down by a majority of eight States against
three, according tQ the 'Madison Papers,' from which the above extracts are
taken, and by nine States against two, according to the printed journals of
the convention. The reservation in the form in which it now stands in the
AND GOV. BROWN UPON CONSCRIPTION. 363
Constitution, 'reserving to the States the appointment of the officers' when
the militia are employed in the service of the Confederacy, as well tlie gen-
eral officers as those under that grade, was then adopted unanimously by the
convention.
" At the expense of wearying your patience, I have been thus careful in
tracing the history of this clause of the Constitution, to show that it was the
clear understanding of those who originated this part of the fundamental
law, that the States should retain their power over their militia, even while in
the service of the Confederacy, by retaining the appointment of a// </ie offirers.
"In practice, the government of the United States, among other numerous
encroachments of power, had usurped to itself the power which the conven-
tion, after mature deliberation, had expressly denied to it, to wit, the power
of appointing \\\q general officers of the militia when employed in the service
of the general government.
" But even tiiat government had never attempted to go to the extent of
usurping the power to appoint the field and company officers. If the framers
of the Constitution w'ere startled at the idea of giving the appointment of
the general officers to the general government, and promptly rejected it. how
would they have met a proposition to give the appointment of all the
OFFICERS, down to the lowest lieutenant, to it ?
"But you say, 'with regard to the mode of officering the troops now called
into the service of the Confederacy, the intention of Congress is to be learned
from its acts, and from the terms employed it would seem that the policy of
election by the troops themselves is adopted by Congress.'
"I confess I had not so understood it, without very essential qualification.
It is true, the twelve-months men who re-enlist have a right, within forty
days, to re-organize and elect their officers.
" But if I understood the act, judging from the terms used, all vacancies
which occur in the old regiments are to be filled, not by election, but by the
President, by promotion, down to the lowest commissioned officer, whose
vacancy alone is filled by election, and even this rule of promotion may be set
aside by the President at any time, tmder circumstances mentioned in the
act, and he may appoint any one he pleases to fill the vacancy, if, in his
opinion, the person selected is distinguished for skill or valor; and the com-
mission in either and all the cases mentioned must be issued by the
President.
"Quite a number of Georgia regiments are in for the war whose officers
hold commissions from the Executive of the State ; but even in these regi-
ments, under tlie act, every person appointed to fill any vacancy which may
hereafter occur, must, it would seem, hold his commission, not from the
State, but from the President.
" But admit that Congress, by its acts, intended to give the troops in every
case the right to elect their officers (which has not been the established
practice, as you have commissioned many persons to command as field of-
364 CORRESPONDENCE OF PRESIDENT DAVIS
ficers without election,) this does not relieve the acts of Congress from the
charge of violation of the Constitution. The question is not as to the mode
of selecting tlie person who is to have the commission, but as to the govern-
ment which has, imder the Constitution, the right to issue the commission.
The States, in tlie exercise of their reserved power to appoint the officers,
may select them by election, or may permit the Executive to select them ;
but the appointment rests upon tlie commission, as there is no complete ap-
pointment till the commission is issued, and, therefore,, the government that
issues the commission exercises the appointing power and controls the
appointment.
'• I am not, however, discussing the intention of Congress in the assump-
tion of this power, but only the question of its powers ; and whatever may
have been its intention, I maintain that it has transcended its constitutional
powers, and has placed in the hands of the Executive of the Confederacy that
which tlie States have expressly and carefully denied to Congress and re-
served to themselves.
" But you may ask, why hold the Executive responsible for the unconsti-
tutional action of Congress ? I would not, of course, insist on this any
further than the action of Congress has been sanctioned by the Executive,
and acted upon by him.
'■ Feeling satisfied that the Conscription Act, and such other acts of Con-
gress as authorize the President to appoint or commission the officers of the
militia of the State, when employed in the service of the Confederate States
to ' repel invasion,' are in palpable violation of the Constitution, I can con-
sent to do no act which commits Georgia to willing acquiescence in their
binding force upon her people. I cannot, therefore, consent to have any-
thing to do with the enrolment of the conscrijits in this State, nor can I per-
mit any commissioned officer of the militia to be enrolled who is necessary
to enable the State to exercise her reserved right of training her militia, ac-
cording to the discipline prescribed by Congress, at a time when to prevent
troubles with her slaves, a strict military police is absolutely necessary to the
safety of her people. Nor can I permit any other officer, civil or military,
who is necessary to the maintenance of the State government, to be carried
out of the State as a conscript.
"Should you at anytime need additional troops from Georgia to fill up
her just quota, in proportion to the number furnished by the other States,
you have only to call on the Executive for the number required, to be or-
ganized and officered as the Constitution directs, and your call will, as it
ever has done, meet a prompt response from her noble and patriotic people,
who, while they will watch with a jealous eye, even in the midst of revo-
lution, every attempt to undermine their constitutional rights, will never be
content to be behind the foremost in the discharge of their whole duty.
" I am, with great respect, your obedient servant,
"Joseph E. Bkowx."
AND GOV. BROWX UPON CONSCRIPTION. 365
"EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT,
Richmond, May 29, 1862
J
*^Dear Sir: — I received your letter of the 8th inst. in due course, but the
importance of the subject embraced in it required careful consideration ;
and this, together with other pressing duties, has caused delay in my reply.
" The constitutional question discussed by you in relation to the Con-
scription Law had been duly weighed before I recommended to Congress
the passage of such a law ; it was f idly debated in both houses ; and your
letter has not only been submitted to my Cabinet, but a written opinion has
been required from the Attorney-General. The constitutionality of the law
was sustained by very large majorities in both houses. This decision of the
Congress meets the concurrence, not only of my own judgment, but of every
member of the Cabinet ; and a copy of the opinion of the Attorney-General,
herewith enclosed, develops the reasons on which his conclusions are based.
"I propose, however, from my high respect for yourself, and for other
eminent citizens who entertain opinions similar to yours, to set forth, some-
what at length, my own views on the power of the Confederate Government
over its own armies and the militia, and will endeavor not to leuve without
answer any of the positions maintained in your letter.
" The main if not the only purpose for which independent States form
unions or confederations is to combine the power of the several members in
such manner as to form one united force in all relations with foreign powers,
whether in peace or in war. Each State, amply competent to administer and
control its own domestic government, yet too feeble successfully to resist
powerful nations, seeks safety by uniting with other States in like condition,
and by delegating to some common agent the combined strength of all, in
order to secure advantageous commercial relations in peace, and to carry
on hostilities with effect in war.
" Xow, the powers delegated by the several States to the Confederate
Government, which is their common agent, are enumerated in the 8th section
of the Constitution, each power being distinct, specific, and enumerated in
paragraphs separately numbered. The only exception is the 18th paragraph,
which, by its own terms, is made dependent on those previously enumerated,
as follows :
" * 18. To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying
into execution the foregoing powers,' etc.
"Now the war powers granted to the Congress are conferred in the follow-
ing paragraphs :
"No. 1 gives authority to raise 'revenue necessary to pay the debts, pro-
vide/or the common defence, and carry on the government,' &c.
"No. 11, 'to declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make
rules concerning captures on land and water ; '
"No. 12, 'to raise and support armies; but no appropriation of money to
that use shall be for a longer term than two years.'
366 CORRESPONDENCE OF PRESIDENT DAVIS
" Xo. 13, ' to provide and maintain a navy ; '
"No. 14, 'to make rules for tlie government and regulation of the land
and naval forces.'
'' It is impossible to imagine a more broad, ample, and unqualified dele-
gation of the whole war power of each State than is here contained, with the
solitary limitation of the a[)propiiations to two years. The States not only
gave power to raise money for the common defence; to declare war; to
raise and support armies (in the plural) ; to provide and maintain a navy ;
to govern and regulate both land and naval forces ; but they went further,
and covenanted, by the 3d paragraph of the 10th section, not 'to engage in
war, unless actually invaded, or in such irdminent danger as will not admit
of delay.'
" I know of but two modes of raising armies within the Confederate States,
viz. : voluntary enlistment, and draft or conscription. I perceive, in the
delegation of power to raise armies, no restriction as to the mode of procur-
ing troops. I see nothing which confines Congress to one class of men, nor
any greater power to receive volunteers than conscripts into its service. I
see no limitation by which enlistments are to be received of individuals
only, but not of companies, or battalions, or squadrons, or regiments. I
find no limitation of time of service but only of duration of appropriation.
I discover nothing to confine Congress to waging war within the limits of
the Confederacy, nor to prohibit offensive war. In a word, when Congress
desires to raise an army, and passes a law for that purpose, the solitary ques-
tion is under the 18th paragraph, viz. : ' Is the law one that is necessary and
proper to execute the power to raise armies,' etc.?
*" On this point you say : ' But did the necessity exist in this case ? ' The
Conscription Act cannot aid the Government in increasing the supply of
arms or provisio7is, but can only enable it to call a larger number of men into
the field. The difficulty has never been to get men. The States have
already furnished the Government more than it can arm,' etc.
" I would have very little difficulty in establishing to your entire satisfac-
tion that the passage of the law was not only necessary, but that it was abso-
lutely indispensable ; that numerous regiments of twelve-months men were
on the eve of being disbanded, whose places could not be supplied by new
levies in the face ot superior numbers of the foe, without entailing the most
disastrous results ; that the position of our armies was so critical as to fill
the bosom of every patriot with the liveliest apprehension ; and that the pro-
visions of this law were effective in warding off a pressing danger. But I
prefer to answer your objection on other and broader grounds.
"I hold, that wliea a specific power is granted by the Constitution like
thit now in question, ' to raise armies,' Congress is the judge whether the
law passed for the purpose of executing that power is ' necessary and
proper.' It is not enough to say that armies might be raised in other ways,
and that, therefore, this particular way is not 'necessary.' The same argu-
AND GOV. BROWN UPON CONSCRIPTION. 3G7
ment might be used against every mode of raising armies. To each succes-
sive mode suggested, the objection would be that other modes were practica-
ble, and that, therefore, the particular mode used was not ' necessary.' The
true and only test is to enquire whether the law is intended and calculated to
carry out the object ; whether it devises and creates an instrumentality for
executing the specific power granted ; and if the answer be in the affirmative,
the law is constitutional. None can doubt that the Conscription Law is
calculated and intended to ' raise armies.' It is, therefore, ' necessary and
proper 'for the execution of that power, and is constitutional, unless it
conies into conflict with some other provision of our Confederate compact.
" You express the opinion that this conflict exists, and support your argu-
ment by the citation of those clauses which refer to the militia. There
are certain provisions not cited by you, which are not without influence on
my judgment, and to which I call your attention. They will aid in defining
what is meant by 'militia,' and in determining the respective powers of the
States and the Confederacy over them.
"The several States agree ' not to keep troops or ships of war in time of
peace.' Art. 1, sec. 10, par. 3.
"They further stipulate, that ' a well regulated militia being necessary
to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms
shall not be infringed.' Sec. 9, par. 13.
" That ' no person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infa-
mous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in
cases arising in the land or naval forces or in the militia when in actual
service in time of war or public danger,' etc. Sec. 9, par. 16.
" What then are militia ? They can only be created by law. — The arms-
bearing inhabitants of a State are liable to become its militia, if the law so
order; but in the absence of a law to that effect, the men of a State capable
of bearing arms are no more militia than they are seamen.
" The Constitution also tells us that militia are not troops nor are they any
part of the land or naval forces; for militia exist in time of peace, and the
Constitution forbids the States to keep troops in time of peace, and they are
expressly distinguished and placed in a separate category from land or naval
forces, in the 16th paragraph, above quoted ; and the words land or naval forces
are shown, by paragraphs 12, 13 and 14, to mean the army and navy of the
Confederate States.
"Now, if militia are not the citizens taken singly, but a body cre-
ated by law, if they are not troops, if they are no part of the army and
navy of the Confederacy — we are led directly to the definition quoted by
the Attorney-General, that militia are a ' body of soldiers in a State enrolled
for discipline.' In other words, the term ' militia ' is a collective term,
meaning a body of men organized, and cannot be applied to the separate in-
dividuals who compose the organization.
" The Constitution divides the whole military strength of the States into
3C8 CORRESPONDENCE OF PRESIDENT DAVIS
only two classes of organized bodies — one, the armies of the Confederacy ; the
other, the militia of the States.
" In the delegation of power to the Confederacy, after exhausting the sub-
ject of declaring war, raising and supporting armies, and providing a
navy, in relation to all which the grant of authority to Congress is exclusive,
the Constitution proceeds to deal with the other organized body, the militia,
and, instead of delegating power to Congress alone, or reserving it to the
States alone, the power is divided as follows, viz. : Congress is to have
power —
" ' To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the Laws of the Con-
feilerate States, suppress insurrections, and repel >nvasion-<.' Sec. 8, par. 15.
" ' To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, and for
governing such part of them as may be employed in tlie service of the Con-
federate States, renerving to the States respectively the appointment of officers
and the aulhnritu of training the militia according to the discipUne prescribed
by Congress.' Par. 16.
" Congress, then, has the power to provide for organizing the arms-bearing
people of the States into militia. Each State has the power to officer and
train them when organized.
'* Congress may call forth the militia to execute Confederate laws. The
State has not surrendered the power to call them forth to execute State laws.
" Congress may call them forth to repel invasion ; so may the State, for it
has expressly reserved this right.
" Congress may call them forth to suppress insurrection, and so may the
Slate, for the power is impliedly reserved of governing all the militia except
the part in actual service of the Confederacy,
''I confess myself at a loss to perceive in what manner these careful and
well-defined provisions of the Constitution regulating the organization and
government of the militia can be undei-stood as applying in the remotest
d('gree to the armies of the Confederacy; nor can I conceive how tlie grant
of exclu-<ioe power to declare and carry on war by armies raised and sup-
ported by the Confederacy, is to be restricted or diminished by the clauses
which grant a divided power over the militia. On the contrary, the delega-
tion of authority over the militia, so far as granted, appears to me to be
plainly an additional enumerated power, intended to strengthen the hands of
the Confederate Government in the discharge of its paramount duty, the
common defence of the States.
"You state, after quoting tiie 12th, 15th, and 16th grants of power to
Congress, that, ' These grants of power all relate to the same subject matter,
and are all contained in the same section of the Constitution, and by a well
known rule of construction must be taken as a whole, and construed together.'
" This argument appears to me unsound. All the powers of Congress are
enumerated in one section ; and the three paragraphs quoted can no more
control each other by reason of their location in the same section, than they
AND GOV. BROWN" UPON CONSCRIPTION. .369
can control any of the other paragraphs preceding, intervening, or succeed-
ing. So far as the subject matter is concerned, I have already endeavored to
show that the armies mentioned in the 12th paragraph are a subject matter
as distinct from the militia mentioned in the loth and 16th as they are from
the navy mentioned in the 13th. Nothing can so mislead as to construe to-
gether, and as a whole, the carefully separated clauses which define the
different powers to be exercised over distinct subjects by the Congress. But
you add that, ' by the grant of power to Congress to raise and support
armies without qualification, the framers of the Constitution intended the
regular armies of the Confederacy, and not armies composed of the whole
militia of all the States.'
" I must confess myself somewhat at a loss to understand this position.
If I am right, that the militia is a body of enrolled State soldiers, it is not
possible, in the nature of things, that armies ]-aised by the Confederacy can
' be composed of the whole militia of all the States.' The militia may be
called forth, in whole or in part, into the Confederate service, but do not
thereby become part of the ' armies raised ' by Congress. They remain
militia, and go home when the emergency which provoked their call has
ceased. Armies raised by Congress are of course raised out of the same
j'opulaiion as the militia organized by the States ; and to deny to Congress
the power to draft a citizen into the army, or to receive his voluntary offer
of services because he is a member of the State militia, is to deny the power
to raise an army at all ; for, practically, all men fit for service in the army
may be embraced in the militia organizations of the several States. You
seem, however, to suggest, rather than directly to assert, that the conscript
law may be unconstitutional, because it comprehends all arms-bearing men
between eighteen and thirty-five years: at least this is an inference which I
draw from your expression, 'armies composed of the tchole militia of all the
States.' But it is obvious that, if Congress have power to draft into the
armies raised by it any citizens at all (without regard to the fact whether
they are or not members of militia organizations), the power must be co-
extensive with the exigencies of the occasion, or it becomes illusory ; and
the extent of the exigency must be determined by Congress; for the Consti-
tution has left the power without any other check or restriction than the
Executive veto. Under ordinary circumstances, the power thus delegated
to Congress is scarcely felt by the States. At the present moment, when
our very existence is threatened by armies vastly superior in numbers to
ours, the necessity for defence has induced a call, not ' for the whole militia
of all the States,' not for a??y militia, but for inen to compose armies for the
Confederate States.
" Surely, there is no mystery on this subject. During our whole past
history, as well as during our recent one year's experience as a new confed-
eracy, the militia 'have been called forth to repel invasion' in numerous
instances; and they never came otherwise than as bodies organized by the
24
370 CORRESPONDENCE OF PRESIDENT DAVIS
States, with their company, field, and general officers; and when the emer-
gency had passed, they went home again.
" I cannot perceive how any one can interpret the conscription law as
taking away from the States the power to appoint officers to their militia.
You observe on this point in your letter, that unless your construction is
adopted ' the very object of the States in reserving the power of appointing
the officers is defeated, and that portion of the Constitution is not only a
nullity, but the whole military power of the States, and the entire control of
the militia, with the appointment of the officers, is vested in the Confederate
Government, whenever it chooses to call its own action " raising an army,"
and not calling forth the militia.'
" I can only say, in reply to this, that the power of Congress depends on
tlie real nature of the act it proposes to perform, not on the name given to
it ; and I have endeavored to show that its action is merely that of ' raising
an army,' and bears no semblance to 'calling forth the militia.' I think I
may safely venture the assertion, that there is not one man out of a thou-
sand of those who will do service under the Conscription Act that would
describe himself, while in the Confederate service, as being a militia man;
and if I am right in this assumption, the popular understanding concurs
entirely with my own deductions from the Constitution as to the meaning
of the word * militia.'
" My answer has grown to such a length that I must confine myself to one
more quotation from your letter. You proceed : ' Congress shall have power
to raise armies. IIow shall it be done ? The answer is clear. In conformity
to the provisions of the Constitution, which expressly provides that when
the militia of the States are called forth to repel vivasion, and employed in
the service of the Confederate States, which is now the case, the State shall
appoint the officers.'
"I beg you to observe that the answer, which you say is clear, is not an
answer to the question put. The question is: How are armies to be raised?
The answer given is, that when militia are called forth to repel invasion the
State shall appoint the officers.
" There seems to me to be a conclusive test on this whole subject. By
our Constitution Congress may declare war, offensive as well as defensive.
It may acquire territory. — Now, suppose that for good cause, and to right
unprovoked injuries, Congress should declare war against Mexico, and
invade Sonora. The militia could not be called forth in such a case, the
right to call it l)eing limited 'to repel invasions.' ' Is it not plain tliat the
law now under discussion, if passed under such circumstances, could by no
possibility be aught el>e than a law to ' raise an army '? Can one and the
same iuvv be construed into a 'calling forth the militia,' if the war be defen-
sive, and a ' raising of armies,' if the war be offensive ?
"At some future day, after our independence sliall have been established,
it is no improbable supposition that our present enemy may be tempted to
AND GOV. BEOWN UPON CONSCRIPTION. 371
abuse his naval power, by depredation on our commerce, and that we may
be compelled to assert our rights by offensive war. How is it to be carried
on ? Of what is the army to be composed? If this Government cannot call
on its arms-bearing population otherwise than as militia, and if the militia
can only be called forth to repel invasion, we should be utterly helpless to
vindicate our honor or protect our rights. AVar has been well styled ' the
terrible litigation of nations.' Have we so formed our Government that in
this litigation we must never be plaintiff? Surely this cannot have been the
intention of the framers of our compact.
"In no aspect iu which I can view this law, can I find just reason to dis-
trust the propriety of my action in approving and signing it ; and the ques-
tion presented involves consequences, both immediate and remote, too
momentous to permit me to leave your objections unanswered.
"In conclusion, I take great pleasure in recognizing that the history of
the past year affords the amplest justification for your assertion, that if the
question had been whether the conscription law was necessary in order to
raise men in Georgia, the answer must have been in the negative. Your
noble State has promptly responded to every call tliat it has been my duty
to make on her; and to you, personally, as her Executive, I acknowledge
my indebtedness for the prompt, cordial, and effective co-operation you
have afforded me in the effort to defend our common country against the
common enemy.
" I am, very respectfully,
" Your obedient servant,
" Jefferson Davis.
" His Excellency Jos. E. Brown,
*' Governor of Georgia,
" Milledgeville."
" Atlanta, June 21, 1862,
"HIS EXCELLENCY JEFEERSOX DAVIS, President, &c.
"Dear Sir: — I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter
of the 29th ult., in reply to mine of the 8th of the same month, which
reached my office, at Milledgeville, on the 8th inst., together with a copy of
the written opinion of the Attorney- General, and has since been forwarded
to me at Canton, where I was detained by family affliction.
"Your reply, prepared after mature deliberation and consultation with a
Cabinet of distinguished ability, who concur in your view of the constitu-
tionality of the Conscription Act, doubtless presents the very strongest
argument in defence of the Act, of which the case is susceptible.
"Entertaining, as I do, the highest respect for your opinions and those of
each individual member of your Cabinet, it is with great diffidence that I
express the conviction, which I still entertain, after a careful perusal of your
372 CORRESPONDENCE OF PRESIDENT DAVIS
letter, that your argument fails to sustain the constitutionality of the Act;
and that the conclusion at which you have arrived is maintained by neither
the contemporaneous construction put upon the Constitution by those who
made it. nor by the practice of the United States Government under it
during the earlier and better days of the Republic, nor by the language of
the instrument itself, taking the whole context and applying to it the well
established rules by which all constitutions and laws are to be construed.
"Looking to the magnitude of the rights involved, and the disastrous
consequences which, I fear, must follow what I consider a bold and danger-
ous usurpation by Congress of the reserved rights of the States, and a rapid
stride towards military despotism, I very much regret that I have not, in the
preparation of this reply, the advice and assistance of a number equal to
your Cabinet, of the many 'eminent citizens' who, you admit, entertain
with me, the opinion that the Conscription Act is a palpable violation of the
Constitution of the Confederacy. Without this assistance, however, I must
proceed individually to express to you some views, in addition to those con-
tained in my former letters, and to reply to such points made by you in the
argument, as seem to my mind to have the most plausibility in sustaining
your conclusion.
" The sovereignty and independence of each one of the thirteen States at
the time of the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, will not, I
presume, be denied by any, nor will it be denied that each of these States
acted in its separate capacity, as an independent sovereign, in the adoption
of the Constitution. Tlie Constitution is, therefore, a league between sov-
ereigns. In order to place upon it a just construction, we must apply to it
the rules, wliich, by common consent, govern in the construction of all writ-
ten constitutions and laws. One of the first of these rules is, to inquire what
was the intention of those who made the Constitution.
" To enable us to learn this intention, it is important to inquire what they
did, and what they said they meant, when they were making it. In otlier
words, to inquire for the contemporaneous construction put upon the instru-
ment by those who made it, and the explanations of its meaning by those
who proposed each part in the convention, which induced the convention to
adopt each part.
"I incorporated into my last letter a number of quotations from the de-
bates of prominent members of the convention upon the very point in ques-
tion, sliovving that it was not the intention of the convention to give to Con-
gress the unlimited control of all the men able to bear arms in the States,
but that it was their intention to reserve to the States the control over those
who composed their militia, by retaining to the States the appointment of tlie
officers to command them, even while 'employed in the service of the Con-
federate States.' I might add many other quotations containing strong proofs
of this position, from the debates of the Federal convention, and the action
of the State conventions which adopted the Constitution ; but I deem it
AND GOV. BROWN UPON" CONSCRIPTION. 373
unnecessary, as you made no allusion to the contemporaneous construction
in your reply, and I presume you do not insist that the explanations of its
meaning given by those who made it sustain your conclusion.
"I feel that I am fully justified by the debates and the action of the Fed-
eral and State conventions, in saying that it was the intention of the thirteen
sovereigns, to constitute a common agent with certain specific and limited
powers, to be exercised for the good of all the principals, but that it was not
the intention to give the ageiit the power to destroy the principals. The agent
was expected to be rather the servant of several masters, than the master of
several servants. I apprehend it was never imagined that the time would
come when the agent of the sovereigns would claim the power to take from
each sovereign every man belonging to each, able to bear arms, and leave
them with no power to execute their own laws, suppress insurrections in their
midst, or repel invasions.
*'In reference to the practice of the United States Government under the
Constitution, I need only remark, that I do not presume it will be contended
that Congress claimed or exercised the right to compel persons constituting
the militia of the States, by conscription or compulsion, to enter the service of
the General Government, without the consent of their State Government, at
any time while the Government was administei'ed, or its councils controlled,
by any of the fathers of the Republic who aided in the formation of the Con-
stitution.
"If, then, the constitutionality of the Conscription Act cannot be estab-
lished by the contemporaneous construction of the Constitution, nor by the
earlier practice of the Government while administered by those who made
the Constitution, the remaining inquiry is, can it be established by the lan-
guage of the instrument itself, taking the whole context, and applying to it
the usual rules of construction, which were generally received and admitted
to be authoritative at the time it was made.
" The Constitution, in express language, gives Congress the power to * raise
and support armies.' You rest the case liere, and say you know of but two
modes of 'raising armies,' to wit: 'by voluntary enlistment, and by draft or
conscription,' and you conclude that the Constitution authorizes Congress to
raise them by either or both these modes.
" To enable us to arrive at an intelligent conclusion as to the meaning in-
tended to be conveyed by those who used this language, it is necessary to
inquire what signification was attached to the terms used, at the time they
were used ; and it is fair to infer that those who used them intended to con-
vey to the minds of others the idea which was at that time usually conveyed
by the language adopted by them. Apply this rule, and what did the con-
vention mean by the term ' to raise armies ? ' I prefer that the Attorney-
General should answer. He says in his written opinion :
" ' Inasmuch as the words " militia," " armies," " regular troops," and " vol-
unteers," had acquired a definite meaning in Great Britain before the Ilevolu-
374 COERESPONDENCE OF PRESIDENT DAVIS
tionary war, and as we liaA'e derived most of our ideas on this subject from
that source, we may safely conclude that tlie term " militia," in our Constitu-
tion, was used in the sense attached to it in that country.'
" Upon this statement of tlie Attorney-General rests his definition of the
term 'militia,' which is an English definition; and upon that definition
rests all that part of your argument, which draws a distinction, however un-
substantial, between calling forih the militia by the authority of Congress,
and calling forth all men in the State who compose the militia by the same
authority. In the one case, you term it calling forth (he militia, and admit
that the State has the right to appoint the officers: in the otiier case, while
every man called forth may be the same, you term it raising an army, and
deny to the State the appointment of the officers. As this is necessary to
sustain tlie constitutiouidity of the Conscription Act, you cannot disapprove
the statement of the Attorney-General above quoted. If, then, the Attorney-
General is right, that the terms ' militia,' ' armies, ' regular troops,' and ' vol-
unteers ' had acquired a definite meaning in Great Britain before the Rev-
olutionary war, and we have derived most of our ideas on this subject from
that source, and if we may safely conclude that the term 'militia' in our
Constitution was used in the sense attached to it in that country, is it not
equally safe to conclude that the terms ' armies,' and to ' raise armies,' hav-
ing acquired a definite meaning in Great Britain before the Revolutionary
war, were used in our Constitution in the same sense attached to them in
that country?
"At that period, the government of Great Britain had no Conscription
Act, and did not ' raise armies ' by conscription ; therefore the convention
which made our Constitution, 'having derived most of their ideas on this
subject from that source,' it is ' safe to conclude ' that they used the terra to
' raise armies' in the sense attaclied to it in that country. It necessarily fol-
lows, the Attorney-General being the judge, that your conclusion is erro-
neous, and that Congress has no power to ' raise armies,' not even her reg-
ular armies,' by conscription.
" But, as those who framed the Constitution foresaw that Congress might
not be able, by voluntary enlistment, to raise regular or standing armies suf-
ficiently large to meet all emergencies, or that the people might refuse to
vote supplies to maintain in the field armies* so large and dangerous, they
wisely provided, in connection with this grant of power, another relating to
the same subject-matter, and gave Congress the additional power to call
forth the militia to execute the laws of the Confederate States, suppress in-
surrections, and repel invasions.
" In this connection, I am reminded by your letter, that Congress has power
*to declare war,' which you say embraces the right to declare offensive as
well as defensive war; and you argue, as I understand, that the militia can
only be called forth to repel invasions, and not to invade a foreign power,
and that Congress would be powerless to redress our wrongs, or vindicate
AND GOV. BROWN UPON CONSCRIPTION. 375
our honor, if it could not ' raise armies ' by conscription, to invade foreign
powers. If this were even so, it might be an objection to the constitutional
government, for want of sufBcient strength, which is an objection often
made by those who favor more absolute power in the general government,
and who attempt, by a latitudinarian construction of the Constitution, to
supply powers which were never intended to be given to it. But does the
practical difficulty which you suggest in fact exist? I maintain that it
does not. And I may here remark, that those who established the govern-
ment of our fathers did not look to it as a great military power, whose
people were to live by plundering other nations in foreign aggressive v,-ar,
but as a peaceful government, advised by the Father of his Country to avoid
' entangling alliances ' with foreign powers.
" But you suppose, after our independence is established, that our present
enemy may be tempted to abuse his naval power, by depredation on our
commerce, and that we may be compelled to assert our rights by offensive
war, and you ask, ' How is it to be carried on ? ' 'Of what is the army to be
composed? ' The answer is a very simple one. If the aggression is such as
to justify us in the declaration of offensive war, our people will have the in-
telligence to know it, and the patriotism and valor to prompt them to re-
spond by voluntary enlistment, and to offer themselves under officers of
their own choice, through their State authorities, to the Confederacy, just as
they did in the offensive war against Mexico, M-hen many more were offered
than were needed, without conscription or coercion ; and just as they have
done in our present defensive war, when a' most every St.ite has responded
to every call, by sending larger numbers than were called for, and larger
than the government can arm and make effective. There is no danger that
the honor of the intelligent free-born citizens of this Confederacy will ever
suffer because the government has not the power to compel them to vindicate
it. They will hold the government responsible if it refuses to permit them to
do it. To doubt this, would seem to be to doubt the intelligence and pa-
triotism of the people, and their competency for self-government.
" It would be very dangerou'^, indeed, to give the general government the
power to engage in an offensive foreign war, the justice of which was con-
demned by the governments of the States, and the intelligence of the people,
and to compel them to prosecute it for two years, the term for which appro-
priations can be made and continued by the Congress declaring it. Hence
the wisdom of our ancestors in limiting the power of Congress over the
militia, or great body of our people, so as to prohibit the prosecution, by
coTHicrlption or coercion, oi an offensive foreign war, which may be condemned
by an intelligent public opinion.
" France has a conscription act, which Great Britain has not. Both are
warlike powers often engaged in foreign oft'ensive wars. What advantage
has the conscription law given to France over Great Britain? Has not the
latter been as able as the former to ' raise armies' sufficient to vindicate her
376 CORRESPONDENCE OF PRESIDENT DAVIS
honor and maintain her rights? "When France liad no conscription law at
one period of her history, she was a republic. Soon after she had a con-
scription law she became an empire and her ruler an emperor, leaving her
people without the constitutional safeguards whicli protect the people of
Great Britain.
"Butyou ask, ' Shall we never be plaintiff in this '' terrible litigation of
nations?"' If the litigation commends itself to the intelligence of the
people as just, they will not hesitate to put themselves at the command of
the Government to assume the plaintiff's position. The eagerness with
which the people of the Confederacy now desire that we assume the plaintiff's
position, and become the attacking and invading party, instead of acting con-
stantly upon the defensive, is evidence to sustain my conclusion on this point.
" That those who framed the Constitution looked to a state of war as
tending to concentrate the power in the Executive, and as unfavorable to
constitutional liberty, and did not intend to encourage it, unless in cases of
absolute necessity, and did not, therefore, form the government with a view
to its becoming a power often engaged in offensive war, may be inferred
from the language of Mr. Madison. He says :
" ' War is, in fact, the true nurse of Executive aggrandizement. In war a
physical force is to be created, and it is the Executive will which is to direct
it. In war the public treasures are to be unlocked, an^l it is tlie Executive
hand which is to dispense them. In war, the honors and emoluments of
office are to be multiplied, and it is the Executive patronage under which
they are to be enjoyed. It is in war, finally, that laui-els are to be gathered,
and it is tlie Executive brow they are to encircle. The strongest passions
and most dangerous weaknesses of ti)e human breast — ambition, avarice,
vanity, the honorable or venial love of fame — are all in conspiracy against
the desire and duty of peace.' See Federalist, page 452.
"In connection with this remark of Mr. Madison, it may not be amiss to
add one from Mr. Calhoun. That great and good man, who may justly be
styled the champion of Stale Rights and Constiluiional Liberty, in the first
voluine of his works, page 361, while speaking of the war which was forced
upon Mr. Madison while President, by Great Britain, says :
" ' It did more; for the war, however just and necessary, gave a strong
impulse adverse to the Federal and favorable to the national line of policy.
This is, indeed, one of the unavoidable consequences of war and can be
counteracted only by bringing into full action the negalivea necessary to the
protection of the reserved powers. These would of themselves have the
effect of preventing wars, so long as they could be honorably and safely
avoided ; and, when necessary, of arresting to a great extent the tendency of
the Governrnenl to transcen<i the Hmit< of the Constitution during its prosecution,
and of correcting all departures after its termination. It was by force of
the tribunitial power that the plebeians retained for so long a period their
liberty in the midst of so many wars.'
AND GOV. BPvOV/N UPON CONSCRIPTION. 377
" I beg to call special attention to the portions of the above quotation
whicli I have italicised.
"Having rested the constitutionality of the Conscription Act upon the
power given to Congress to ' raise armies,' you euunciatte a doctrine which, I
must be pardoned for saying, struck me with surprise ; not that the doctrine
was new, for it was first proclaimed, I believe, almost as strongly by Mr.
Hamilton in the Federalist, but because it found an advocate in yon, whom
I had for many years regarded as one of the ablest and boldest defenders of
the doctrines of the State Rights school, in the old government. Your lan-
guage is :
" ' I hold that when a specific power is granted by the Constitution, like
that now in question, to "raise armies," Congress is the judge wlietlier
the law passed for the purpose of executing that power, is necessary and
proper.'
" Again you say :
"'The true and only test is, to enquire whether the law is intended and
calculated to carry out the object, whether it devises and creates an instru-
mentality for executing the specific power granted, and if the answer be
in the affirmative the law is constitutional.'
" From this you argue that the Conscription Act is calculated and in-
tended to 'raise armies,' and, therefore, constitutional.
"I am not aware that the proposition was ever stated more broadly in
favor of unrestrained Congressional power, by Webster, Story, or any other
statesman or jurist of the Federal school.
'• This is certainly not the doctrine of the Republican party of 179S, as
set forth in the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions. The Virginia Resolu-
tions use the following language, that ' It (the General Assembly of Virginia)
views the powers of the Federal Government as resulting from the compact
to which the States are parties, as limited by the plain sense and intention
of the instrument constituting that compact, as no further valid than they
are authorized by the grants enumerated in that compact; and that in case of
a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers not granted by said
compact, the States who are parties thereto haue the right and are in duty
bound to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining with-
in their respective limits the authorities, rights, and liberties appertaining to
them. That the General Assembly doth also express its deep regret that a
spirit has in sundry instances been manifested by the Federal Government
to enlarge its powers by a forced construction of the constitutional charter which
defines them; and that indications have appeared of a design to expound cer-
tain general phrases — which having been copied from the very limited
grant of powers in the former articles of confederation were the less liable to
be misconstrued — so as to destroy the meaning and effect of the particular
enumeration which necessarily explains and limits the general phrases, so as to
consolidate the States by degrees into one sovereignty, the obvious tendency and
378 COPvRESPOXDEXCE OF PRESIDENT DAVIS
inevitable result of which wouhl be to transform the present republican sys-
tem of the United States into an ahsnlule or at least a mixed monnrch;/.'
'•The following quotations are from the Kentucky Resolutions drawn up
by ]\Ir. Jefferson himself (the itidics, as in the last quotation, are my own),
' That the several States composing the United States of America are not
united on the principle of nnlimiied suhmis'-ion to the general Government,
but that, by a compact under tlie style and title of a Constitution of the
United States, and of amendments thereto, they constituted a general Gov-
ernment for special purpo-=es — delf^gated to that Government certain definite
powers; reserving each State In itself, lh>^ residuary mass of right to iheir own self-
governmtnt ; tlu<t wh-nsoever the general Government assum'^s uutlelegnted pow-
ers its nets are unaulhorilative, void and of no forc^. ; that to this compact each
State acceded as a State, and is an intei^iral party — its co-States forming as to it-
self the other party ; that the government created by this compact lois not made the
exclusice or final Judge of the extent of the powers delega'ed to it — since that
u-onld have made ITS discrktiox and not the Constitution the m^a.^ure of it:t
po'rers ; but that, as in all other cases of compact among parties having no
common Judge, each has an equal right to Judge fur itsefas ladl of infrac-
tions as of the mode and measure of redress.'
" And again :
"' ^J'hnt the construction apjdied hg the general Government (as evinced by sun-
dry of their proceedings) to those parts of the Constitution of the United
States wliich delegate to Congress a power to lay and collect taxes, duties,
imposts and excises; to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and
general welfare of the United States; and to make all laws necessary and
proper for carrying into execution the powers vested by the Constitution in
the Government of the United States, or any department thereof, goes to the
destruction of all the limits prescribed to their power by the Constitution. That
words meant by that instrument to be subsidiary only to the execution of the
limited powers ought not to be so construed as themselves to gn-e unlimited
powers, nor a part so lobe taken as to destroy the whole residue of the instrument.''
" But let us eximine your doctrine a little further and see whether it can
be reconciled to the construction lately put upon the Constitution by tiie
States composing the Confederacy over which j'ou preside, and the action
lately taken by them.
"The Constitution of the United States gives Congress the power to pro-
vide for calling forth the militia to ' suppress insurrections.' Carry out your
doctrine, and Congress must of course be the judge of what constitutes an
insurrection, as well as of the umiins ' necessary and proper' to be used in
executing the specific powers given to Congress to suppress it. Georgia,
claiming that the Congress of the United States had abused the specific
in powers granted to it, and passed laws which were not ' necessary and proper'
in executing these specific powers which were injurious to her people, and claim-
ing to be herself the Judge, seceded from the Union. Congress denied her
AND GOV. BROWN UPOX CONSCRIPTION. 379
power or riglit to do so, and acting upon the doctrine laid down by you,
Congress, claiming to be tlie judge^ proceeded to adjudicate the case, and de-
termined tliat tlie action of (Jeorgia amounted to an insurrectiini, and passed
laws for its suppression. Among otliers, tliey have passed a law, if we may
credit the newspapers, which authorizes the President to arm our negroes
against us. Congress will, no doubt, justify this act, under the specific power
given to it by the Constitution, to 'raise armies,' as the armies as well as the
militia may be used to suppress insurrection, and execute the laws. Apply
the test laid down by you, and inquire, is this law 'calculated and intended'
to carry out the object (the suppression of the insurrection, and the execution
of the laws of the United States in Geirgia)? and does it 'devise and create
an instrumentality for executing the specific power granted?' Congress, tlip.
juil(/€, answers the question in tlie affirmative. Therefore the law is consti-
tutional.
" Again, suppose you are right, and Congress ha^ the constitutional power
to 'raise armies' by conscription, and, without the consent of the States, to
compel every man in the Confederacy between 18 and 35 years old, able to
bear arms, to enter these armies, you must admit that Con<:ress has the same
power to extend the law, and comjiel every man between 16 and 00 to enter.
And you must admit that the grant of power is as broad in times of peace
as in times of war, as there is in the grant no language to limit it to times of
war. It follows that Congress has the absohue control of every man in the
State, whenever it chooses to execute to the full extent the power given it
by the Constitution to 'raise armies.' How easy a matter it would have
been, therefore, had the Congress of the United States understood tiie full
extent of its power, to have prevented in a manner perfectly constitutional
the secession of Georgia and Mississippi from the Union. It was only neces-
sary to pass a conscription low declaring every man in both States able to
bear arms, to be in the military service of the United States, and that each
should be treated as a deserter if he refused to serve ; and that Congress,
the Judge, then decide this law was ' necessary and proper,' and that it cre-
ated an instrumentality for the execution of one of the specific powers
granted to Congress to provide for the execution of the laws of the Union in
the two States, or to provide for ' raising armies.' Tliis would have left
the States without a single man at their command, without the power to
organize or use military force, and without free men to constitute even a
convention to pass an ordinance of secession.
" If it is said the people of the States would have refused to obey this law
of Congress, and would have gone out in defiance of it; it may be replied
that this would have been revolution and not peaceful secession, the right for
which we have all contended — though our enemies have not permitted us to
part with them in peace — the right for which we are now fighting.
"Your doctrine carried out not only makes Congress supreme over the
States, at any time when it chooses to exercise the full measure of its power
380 CORRESPONDENCE OF PRESIDENT DAVIS
to ' raise armies,' but it places the very existence of the State governments
subject to the will of Congress. The Conscription Act makes no exception
in favor of the officers necessary to the existence of the State government,
but in substance declares that they shall all enter the service of the Confed-
eracy, at the call of the President, under officers which are in future to be ap-
pointed by the President.
"As already remarked, Congress has as much power to extend the act to
embrace all between 16 and 60, as it had to take all between 18 and 35. If
the act is constitutional, it follows that Congress has the power to compel the
Governor of every State in the Confederacy, every member of every Legisla-
ture of every State, every judge of every court in every State, every officer
of the militia of every State, and all other State officers to enter tlie military
service as privates in the armies of the Confederacy, under officers appointed
by the President, at any time when it so decides. In other words, Congress
may disband the State governments any day when it, as the jwlge, decides
that by so doing it ' creates an instrumentality for executing the specific
power ' to ' raise armies.'
"If Congress has the riglit to discriminate, and take only those between
18 and 35, it has the right to make any other discrimination it may judge
'necessary and proper' in the 'execution of the power,' and it may pass a
law in time of peace or war, if it should conclude the State governments are
an evil, that all State officers, executive, legislative, judicial, and military,
shall enter the armies of the Confederacy as privates under officers appointed
by the President, and that the army shall from time to time be recruited
from other State officers as they may be appointed by the States.
"To state the case in different form, Congress has the power under the
12th paragraph of the 8th section of the 1st article of the Constitution to
disband the State governments, and leave the people of the States with no
other government than such military despotism as Congress in the exercise
of the specific power to 'raise armies' (which I understand you to hold is a
distinct power to be construed separately) may, after an application of your
test, judge to be best for the people.
" For, as all the State officers which I mention might make effective pri-
vates in the armies of the Confederacy, and as the law passed to compel them
to enter the service might 'create an instrumentality for executing the spe-
cific power' to 'raise armies,' Congress, the judge, need only so decide and
the act would be constitutional.
" I may be reminded, however, that Congress passed an Exemption Act af-
ter the passage of the Conscription Act, which exempts the Governors of the
States, the members of the State Legislatures, the judges of the State courts,
etc., from the obligation to enter the military service of the Confederacy as
privates under Confederate officers. It must be borne in mind, however,
that this very act of exemption by Congress is an assertion of the right vested
in Congress to compel them to go, when Congress shall so direct, as Congress
AND GOV. BROWX UPON CONSCRIPTION. 381
has the same power to repeal which it had to pass the Exemption Act. All
the State officers, therefore, are exempt from conscrii:)tion by the grace and
fpffial favor of Congresfi And not hj right, as the governments of the independ-
ent States whose agent, and not master. Congress had been erroneously sup-
posed to be. If this doctrine be correct, of what value are State rights and
State sovereignty f
" In my formel' letter I insisted, under the general rule, that the 12tli, 15th
and 16tli paragraphs of the section under consideration, all relating to the
same subject matter, should be construed together. While your language on
this poiut is not so clear as iu other parts of your letter, I understand you to
take issue with me here. You say :
"'Nothing can so mislead as to construe together and as one whole the
carefully separated clauses which define the different powers to be exercised
over distinct subjects by Congress.'
" These are not carefully separated clauses which relate to different powers
to be exercised over dis'inct subjects. They all relate to the same suhjici matter,
the authority given to Congress over the question of war and peace. They
all relate to the use of armed force by authority of Congress. If, tlierefore,
Coke, Blackstone and Mansfield of England, and Marshall, Kent and Story
of this country, with all other intelligent writers on the rules of construction,
are to be respected as authority, there can, it would seem, be no doubt of the
correctness of the position that these three paragraphs, together with all
others in the Constitution which relate to the same subject matter, are to be
construed together ' as one whole.'
"Construe them together, and the general language in one paragraph is so
qualified by another paragraph upon the same subject matter, that all can stand
together, and the whole, when taken together, establishes to my mind the
unsoundness of your argument and the fallacy of your conclusion.
"But I must not omit to notice your definition of the term 'militia,' and
the deductions which you draw from it.
"You adopt the definition of the Attorney-General that 'the militia are a
body of soldiers in a State enrolled for discipline.' Admit, for the purposes
of the argument, the correctness of the definition. All persons, therefore,
who are enrolled for discipline under the laws of Georgia constitute her
militia. When the persons thus enrolled (the militia) are employed in the
service of the Confederate States, the Constitution ex^jressly reserves to
Georgia the appointment of the officers. The Conscriptiun Act gives the Presi-
dent the power by compulsion to employ every one of those persons, between
18 and 3.3, in the service of the Confederate States; and denies to the State
the appointment of a single officer to command them while thus 'employed.'
Suppose Congress, at its next session should extend the Act so as to embrace
all between 18 and 45, what is the result? 'The body of soldiers in the
State enrolled for discipline' are every man 'employed in the service of the
Confederacy,' and the right is denied to the State to appo'nt a single officer
382 CORRESPONDENCE OF PKESIDENT DAVIS
when the Constitution says she shall appoint them all. Is it fair to conclude
when the States expressly and carefully reserved the control of their own
militia, by reserving thn appointment of the oflicers to command then), that
tliey intended under the general <,n-ant of power to 'raise armies ' to authorize
Congres^s to defeat the reservation and control the militia with their officers
by calling the very same men into the field, individually and not collectively,
organizing them according to its own will, and terming its action ' raising
an army ' and not calling forth the militia ? Surely tlie great men of the revo-
lution, when they denied to the general government the appointment even of
the general officers to command the militia when employed in the service of
the Confederacy, did not imagine that the time would comeso soon when that
government, under the power to 'raise armies,' would claim and exercise the
authority to call into the field the whole militia of the States individually,
and deny to the States the appointment of the lowest lieutenant, and justify
the act on the ground that Congress did not choose to call them into service
in their collective capacity, and deny that they were militia if called into ser-
vice in any other way.
" If Congress has the power to call forth the whole enrolled force or
militia of the States in the manner provided by the Conscription Act, there
is certainly no ohliqation upon Congress ever to call them forth in any other
manner, and it rests in the discretion of Congress whether or not the States
shall ever be permitted to exercise their reserved right, as Congress has the
power in every case to defeat the exercise of the right by calling forth the
militia under a Conscription Act, and not liy requisitions made upon the
States. It cannot be just to charge the States with the folly of making this
iniDortant reservation, subject to any such power in Congress to render it
nugatory at its pleasure.
" Ao^ain, you say 'Congress may call forth the militia to I'xecute Confed-
erate laws; the State has not surrendered the power to call thera forth to
execute :<late laws.'
*" Congress may call them forth to repel invasion; so may the Stat'', for it
has expressly reserved this right.'
'■^ ^ Congress may call thera forth to suppress insurrection, nnd so may the
SiatP.:
"If the conscription law is to control, and Congress may, without the con-
sent of the State Government, order every man composing the militia of the
State, out of the State, into the Confederate service, how is the State to call
forth her own militia, as you admit she has reserved the right to do, to exe-
cute her own laws, suppress an insurrection in her midst, or repel an inva-
sion of her own territory?
" Could it have been the intention of the States to delegate to Congress
tlie power to take from them without their consent the means of self-preser-
vation, by depriving them of all tlie strength upon which their very existence
depends?
AND GOV. BROWN UPON CONSCRIPTION. 383
" After laying down the position that the citizens of a State are not her
mihtia, and affirming that the militia are ' a body organized by law,' you
deny that the militia constitute any part of the land or naval forces, and say
they are distinguished from the land and naval forces ; and you further say
they have always been called forth as 'bodies organized by the States,' with
their officers ; that they ' do not become part of the armies raised by Con-
gress,' but remain militia; and that when they had been called forth, and
tlie exigencies which provoked the call had pnsseil, 'they went home again.'
The militia when called forth are taken from the body of the people, to meet
an emergency, or to repel invasion. If they go in as ' bodies organized by
the States,' you hold that they go in iriililia, remain mililin, and when the
exigency is passed they go home militia ; but if you call forth the same men
by the Conscription Act for the same purpose, and they remain for the same
length of time, and do the same service, they are not militia, but the armies
of the Confederacy, part of the land or naval force. In connection with this
part of the subject you use the following language :
" ' At the present moment, when our very existence is threatened by armies
vastly superior in numbers to ours, the necessity for defence has induced a
call, not for the whole militia of all the States, not for any militia, but for
7nen to compose armies for the Confederate States.'
" In the midst of such pressing danger, why was it that there was no
necessity for any militia; in other words, no necessity for any 'bodies of
men organized by the States,' as were niany of the most gallant regiments
now in the Confederate service, who have won on the battle-field a name in
history, and laurels that can never fade?
"Were no more such bodies 'organized by the States' needed, because
the material remaining within the States of which they must be composed
was not reliable ? The Conscription Act gives you the very same material.
Was it because the officers appointed by the States to command the gallant
State regiments and other 'organized bodies' sent by the States were less
brave or less skilful than the officeis appointed by the President to command
similar ' organized bodies ' ? The officers appointed by the States who now
command regiments in the service, will not fear to have impartial history
answer this question. Was it because you wished select men for the armies
of the Confederacy? The Conscription Act embraces all, without distinc-
tion, between eighteen and thirty-five able to do military duty and not legally
exempt. You do not take the militia. What do you take? You take every
man between certain ages, of whom the militia is composed. What is the
difl'erence between taking the militia and taking all the men who compose
the militia? Simply this : In the one case j'ou take them with their officers
appointed hij the Slates, as the Constitution requires, and call them by their
proper name, 'militia,' 'employed in tlie service of the Confederate States.'
^n the other case you take them all as individuals — get rid of the State
officers — appoint officers of your own choice, and call them the 'armies of
384 CORRESPONDENCE OF PRESIDENT DAVIS
tlie Confederacy.' And yet these armies, like you say the tnilitia do, will
'go home' when the exi;;fency has passed, as it is hoped they are not ex-
pected to be permanent like the regular armies of the Confederacy; or, in
other words, like the land and naval forces provided for in the Constitution,
from which you distinguish the militia. Indeed, the similarity between
these 'armies of the Confederacy,' called forth in an emergency, to repel an
invasion, to be disbanded when the emergency is passed ; and the militia or
bodies of troops organized and officered by the States, called faith for the
same purpose, to be composed of the same material and disbanded at the
same titne, is most remarkable in everything, except the name and the ap-
pointment of the officers.
"Excuse me for calling your attention to anotlier point in this connection.
"As you adniit that the militia have always beeii called forth as 'bodies
organized by the States,' and when thus called forth that the States hare
always appointed the officers, I presume you will not deny that w'hen the
President, hy authority of Congress, has made a call upon a State for 'organ-
ized bodies of soldiers,' and they have been furnished by the State from the
body of her people, they have entered the service as part of the militia of
the State 'employed in the service of the Confederate States ' under the loth
and IGth paragraphs of the 8th section of the 1st article of the Constitution.
"Your message to Congress recommending its passage shows that there
was no necessity for the act, to enable you to get troops, as you admit that
the Executives of the States had enabled you to keep in the field adequate
forces, and also that the spirit of resistance among the people was such that
it needed to be legulated and not stimulated. You say:
" ' I am happy to assure you of the entire harmony of purpose and cordial-
ity of feeling which have continued to exist between myself and the Execu-
tives of the several States, and it is to this cause that our success in keeping
adequate forces iti the field is to be attributed.' Again you say :
"' The vast preparations made by the enemy for a combined assault at
numerous points on our frontier and sea-coast have produced the result that
might have been expected. They have animated the people with a spirit of
resistance so general, so resolute, and so self-sacrificing, that it requires
rather to be regulated than to be stimulated.*
" If then the Executives of the States by their cordial co-operation had
enabled you to keep in the field ' adequate forces,' and the spirit of resistance
was as high as you state, there was no need of a conscription act to enable
you to ' raise armies.'
" Since the invasion of the Confederacy by our present enemy, you have
made frequent calls upon me, as Governor of this State, for 'organized
bodies ' of troops. I have responded to every call and sent them as required,
'organized' according to the laws of the State, and commanded by officers
appointed by the State, and in most instances fully armed, accoutred, and
equipped. These bodies were called forth to meet an emergency, and assist
AND GOV. BROWN UPON CONSCRIPTION. 385
in repelling an invasion. The emergency is not yet passed, the invasion is
not yet repelled, and they have not yet returned home. If your position be
correct, they constitute no part of the land or naval forces, as they were not
organiz-d nor their officers appointed by the Pre.-^ident, as is tl>e case with
the armies of the Confederacy, but they were called forth as bodies 'organized
and their officers appointed by the States.* Hence they are part of the
militia of Georijia employed in the service of the Confederate States as pro-
vided hy the two pai'agraphs of the Constitution above quoted, and by para-
graph 16 of section 9 of the 1st article, which terms them 'militia in actual
service in time of war or public danger.' They entered the service with
only the training common to the citizens of the State. They are now well
trained troops. But having gone in as ' bodies organized by the State,' or as
militia, you say they remain militia, and go home militia. In this case we
seem to agree that the State, under the express reservation in the Constitu-
tion, lias the right to appoint the officers. I have the written opinion of Mr.
Benjamin, then Secretary of War, about the time of tlie la^t call for twelve
regiments, concurring in this view, and recognizing this right of the State.
And it is proper that I should remark that the State has, in each case, been
permitted to exercise this right, when the troops entered the service in com-
pliance with a requisition upon the State for ' organized bodies of troops.'
The right does not stop here, however. The Constitution does not say the
State shall appoint the officers while the organizations may be forming to
enter the service of the Confederacy, but while they 'may be employed in
the service of the Confederate States.' Many thousands are now so employed.
Vacancies in the different offices are frequently occurring by death, resigna-
tion, etc. The laws of this State provide how these vacancies are to be filled,
and it is not to be done by promotion of the officer next in rank, except in a
single instance, but by election of the regiment, and commission by the
Governor. The right of the State to appoint these officers seems to be
admitted, and is indeed too clear to be questioned.
"The Conscription Act, if it is to be construed according to its language,
and the practice which your generals are establishing under it, denies to the
State the exercise of this right, and prescribes a rule for selecting all officers
in future, unknown to the laws of Georgia, and confers upon the President
the power to commission them. Can this usurpation (I think no milder term
expresses it faithfully) be justified under the clause in the Constitution which
gives Congress power to * raise armies '? and is this part of the Act constitu-
tional? If not, you have failed to establish the constitutionality of the Con-
scription Act.
" The lllh paragraph of the 9th section of the 1st article of the Constitu-
tion of the Confederate States declares that —
•"A Will regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the
right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.' This was
no part of the original Constitution as reported by the convention and
25
386 CORRESPONDENCE OF PRESIDENT D4VIS
adopted by the States. But 'the convention of a number of the States hav-
ing at the time of their adopting the Constitution expressed a desire, in order
to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory
and restrictive clauses should be added, Congress at the session begun and
held at the city of New York on Wednesday the 4th of March, 1789, pro-
posed to the Legislatures of the several States twelve amendments, ten of
which only were adopted.'
" The second amendment was the one above quoted, which shows very
clearly that the States were jealous of the control which Congress might claim
over their militia, and required on this point a further 'restrictive clause '
than was contained in the original Constitution.
" The 16th paragraph of the preceding section expressly reserves to the
States 'the authority of training the militia according to the discipline pre-
scribed by Congress.' In connection with this, you admit that the States re-
served the right to call forth their own militia to execute their own laws, sup-
press insurrections or repel invasions. This authority to call them forth would
have been of no value without the authority to appoint officers to command
them; and the further authority to train them; as they cannot without oncers
and training be the well regulated militia which the Constitution says is 'neces-
sary to the security of a free State.'
" The conclusion would seem naturally to follow, that the States did not
intend, by any general wgrds used in the grant of power, to give Congress the
right to take from them, as often as appointed, the officers selected by them
to train and regulate their militia and prepare them for efficiency, when they
may be called forth to support the very existence of the State.
" The Conscription Act embraces so large a proportion of the militia officers
of this State, as to disband the militia in the event they should be compelled
to leave their commands. This would leave me without the power to reor-
ganize them, as a vacancy can only be created in one of these offices by resig-
nation of the incumbent, or by the voluntary performance of some act which
amounts to an abandonment of his command, or by a sentence of a court
martial dismissing him from office. The officer who is dragged fiom his com-
mand by conscription, or compulsion, and placed in the ranks, is in neither
category ; and his office is no more vacated than the office of a judge would
be, if he were ordered into military service without his consent. And unless
there be a vacancy I have no right to fill the place, either by ordering an
election, or by a brevet appointment. I have no right in either case to com-
mission a successor so long as there is a legal incumbent.
" Viewing the Conscription Act in this particular as not only unconstitu-
tional, but as striking a blow at the very existence of the State, by disband-
ing the portion of her militia left within her limits, when much the larger
part of her ' arms-bearing people ' are absent in other States in the military
service of the Confederacy, leaving their families and other helpless women
and children, subject to massacre by negro insurrection for want of an organ-
AND GOV. BROWN UPON CONSCRIPTION. 387
ized force to suppress it, I felt it an imperative duty which I owed the peo-
ple of this State, to inform you in a former letter that I could not permit the
disorganization to take place, nor the State officers to be compelled to leave
their respective commands and enter the Confederate service as conscripts.
— Were it not a fact well known to the country that you now have in service
tens of thousands of men without arms and with no immediate prospect of
getting arms, who must remain for months consumers of our scanty supplies
of provisions, without ability to render service, while their labor would be
most valuable in their farms and workshops, there might be the semblance
of a plea of necessity for forcing the State officers to leave their commands,
with the homes of their people unprotected, and go into camps of instruction,
under Confederate officers, often much more ignorant than themselves of
military science or training. I must, therefore, adhere to my position and
maiutain the integrity of the State Government in its executive, legislative,
judicial and military departments, as long as I can command sufficient force
to prevent it from being disbanded, and its people reduced to a state of pro-
vincial dependence upon the central power.
" If I have used strong language in any part of this letter, I beg you to at-
tribute it only to my zeal in the advocacy of principles and a cause which I
consider, no less than the cause of constitutional liberty, imperilled by the
erroneous views and practice of those placed upon the watch-tower as its con-
stant guardians.
" In conclusion, I beg to assure you that I fully appreciate your expressions
of personal kindness, and reciprocate them in my feelings towards you to the
fullest extent.
" I know the vast responsibilities resting upon you, and would never will-
ingly add unnecessarily to their weight, or in any way embarrass you in the
discharge of your important duties. — While I cannot agree with you in opin-
ion upon the grave question under discussion, I beg you to command me at
all times when I can do you a personal service, or when I can, without a vio-
lation of the constitutional obligations resting upon me, do any service to the
great cause in which we are all so vitally interested.
"Hoping that a kind Providence may give you wisdom so to conduct the
affairs of our young Confederacy as may result in the early achievement of
our independence, and redound to the ultimate pi'osperity and happiness of
our whole people,
" I have the honor to be, very respectfully,
" Your obedient servant,
"Joseph E. Brown.
" P. S. — Since the above letter was written I see, somewhat to my surprise,
that you have thought proper to publish part of our unfinished correspond-
ence.
" In reply to my first letter you simply stated on the point in question that
3S8 COERESPONDENCE OF PRESIDENT DAVIS
the constitutionality of the Act was derivable from that paragraph in the
Constitution which gives Congress the power to raise and support armies. I
replied to that letter with no portion of your argument but the simple state-
ment of your position before me. You then with the aid of your Cabinet
replied to my second letter, giving the argument by which you attempt to sus-
tain your position, and without allowing time for your letter to reach me,
and a reply to be sent, you publish my second letter and your reply, which is
your first argument of the question. I find these two letters not only in the
newspapers but also in pamphlet form, I presume by your order, for genera!
circulation.
" While I cannot suppose that your sense of duty and propriety would per-
mit you to publish part of an unfinished correspondence for the purjwse of
forestalling public opinion, I must conclude that your course is not the usual
one in such cases. As the correspondence was an official one upon a grave
constitutional question, I had supposed it would be given to the country
through Congress and the Legislature of the State.
" But as you have commenced the publication in this hasty and as I think
informal manner, you will admit that I have no other alternative but to con-
tinue it. I must, therefore, request as an act of justice that all newspapers
which have published part of the correspondence, insert this reply.
"J. E. B."
" EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT,
}
Richmond, July 10, 1862.
"Dear Sir: — I have received your letter of 21st ult., and would have con-
tented myself with the simple acknowledgment of its receipt but for one or
two matters contained in it, which seem to require distinct reply.
" I deemed it my duty to state my views in relation to the constitutionality
of the conscript law for the reasons mentioned in my letter to you, but it
was no part of my intention to enter into a protracted discussion. It was
convenient to send my views to others than yourself, and for this purpose I
caused my letter, together with yours, to be printed in pamphlet form. I am
not aware of having omitted any part of your observations, nor did I antici-
pate any further correspondence on the subject. I supposed you had fully
stated your views as I had stated mine, and no practical benefit could be
attained by further discussion.
" It is due however to myself to disclaim in the most pointed manner a
doctrine which you have been pleased to attribute to me, and against which
you indulge in lengtliened argument. Neither in my letter to you, nor in
any sentiment ever expressed by me, can there be found just cause to impute
to me the belief that Congress is the final judge of the constitutionality of a
contested power.
" I said in my letter, that ' when a specific power is granted, Congress is
AND GOV. BKOWK UPON CONSCRIPTION. 389
the judge whether the law passed for the purpose of executing that power
is necessary and proper.'
"I never asserted, nor intended to assert, tliat after the passage of such
law it might not be declared unconstitutional by the courts on complaint
made by an individual; nor that the judgment of Congress was conclusive
against a State, as supposed by you ; nor that all the co-ordinate branches
of the general Government could together finally decide a question of the
reserved rights of a State. The right of each State to judge in the last
resort whether its reserved powers had been usurped by the general Govern-
ment, is too familiar and well settled a principle to admit of discussion.
"As I cannot see, however, after the most respectful consideration of all
that you have said, anything to change my conviction that Congress has
exercised only a plainly granted specific power in raising its armies by con-
scription, I cannot share the alarm and concern about State rights which
you so evidently feel, but which to me seem quite unfounded.
" I am very respectfully yours,
"Jeffersox Davis.
" Gov. JosKPH E. Browx,
"Atlanta, Ga."
"Atlanta, July 22, 1862.
"HIS EXCELLENCY JEFFERSON DAVIS:
" Dear Sir : — I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter
of the 10th inst., and am very liappy to know that you disclaim the doctrine
which I think every fair-minded man has attributed to you who has read
your letter of the 29th May last, and has construed plain English words
according to their established meaning.
" When a writer speaks of a tribunal that is to be ' the judge' of a case,
without qualification, we certainly understand him to mean that this judge
has the right to decide the case. And if the judge has this right, the decision
must be binding upon all the parties ; and no distinct and separate tribunal,
as a different department of the Government, for instance, has the right to
decide the same case, after it has been decided by the judge having compe-
tent jurisdiction. It would seem to be a contradiction in terms to say, that
when a specific power is granted. Congress is the judge 'whether the law
passed for the purpose of executing that power is necessary and proper,'
and that 'the true and only test is to inquire whether the law is intended
and calculated to carry out the object, whether it devises and creates an in-
strumentality for executing the specific power granted ; and if the answer
be in the affirmative, the law is constitutional ; ' and then to say, after this
test has been applied, and Congress has passed judgment, that another de-
partment of the Government, as the President, or the Judiciary, or another
government, as a State, may take up the case thus decided by the tribunal
having, under the Constitution, complete jurisdiction, and make a different
390 CORRESPONDENCE OF PRESIDENT DAVIS
>
decision. It is, I believe, an established principle in all civilized nations,
that when a court of competent jurisdiction — unless guilty of fraud or mis-
take— has finally decided a case, the judgment is conclusive upon all the
parties.
" But you say you never asserted, nor intended to assert, that the judg-
ment of Congress was conclusive against a State. Pardon rue for saying
that you did assert that Congress is the judge, and that you did not qualify
the assertion by saying the judge in the first instance, nor did you annex
any other qualification or exception in favor of the rights of a State or any
other party. I had no right therefore to suppose that you intended to
ingraft exceptions upon a rule which you laid down in the plainest terms
without exception.
" I make the above reference to your former letter, to show that I had no
disposition to do you injustice, and that I do not consider that I misrepre-
sented your position, as contained in your letter. The thousands of intelli-
gent citizens, in different parts of the Confederacy, who have placed upon
your letter the same construction which 1 had, will doubtless be gratified
that you now disclaim the dangerous doctrine as to the power of Congress,
to which your strong unqualified language seemed clearly to commit you.
" In reference to the publication by you of the two letters containing part
of our correspondence, I need only say that you had devoted a large portion
" of your letter to a reply to my argument which was before you, and had in
the same letter, for the first time, given the arguments by which you main-
tain your own position. These I had never seen ; and as you had replied at
length to my argument, it was, I think, but fair and just, according to all
rules of discussion, that I have an opportunity to reply to yours, and that
the whole case be submitted to the country together. Unless there were
important reasons of state which in your judgment made it necessary to
place the di-cussion before the country incomplete, in order to satisfy the
discontents which existed in the public mind, on account of what a very
large proportion of our people regard as a dangerous usurpation, or unless
other good reasons existed for a departure from the usual rule in such cases,
I am unable to see why the whole correspondence, when given to the public,
sliould not have gone through the usual official channels.
" I have certainly had no wish to protract the discussion of this question,
further than duty, and justice to the people of this State required. I feel
that I cannot close, however, without again earnestly inviting your attention
to a question which you must admit is * praciicaL*
"I think I have established beyond a doubt, in my former letters, the con-
stitutional right of the State of Georgia to appoint the officers to command
the regiments and battalions which she has sent into the service of the Con-
federate States, in compliance with requisitions made by you upon her Ex-
ecutive for 'organized bodies'^ of troops. You admitted in your letter that
these bodies ' organized by the States,' when called forth by the Confederacy
AKD GOV. BROWN UPON CONSCRIPTION. 391
to repel invasion, never came otherwise tlian with their company, fell, and
general officers. Your former secretary of war, now secretary of state, has
also admitted the right of the State to appoint the officers to command the
troops sent by her into the service of the Confederacy, under requisition
from you.
"You have not thought proper in either of your letters to give any reason
why the State should be denied the exercise of this clear constitutional ri^ht.
In this state of the case you still exercise the appointing power which
belongs to the State, and commission the officers who are to command these
troops. The laws of this State give to these gallant men the right to elect
their own officers, and have them commissioned by the Executive of their
own State. This question is of the more practical importance at present, on
account of a large number of gallant officers belonging to these regiments
having lately fallen upon the battle-field, whose places are to be filled by
others. The troops volunteered at the call of the State, with a knowledge
of their riaht to elect those who are to command them, and went into the
field with the assurance that they would be permitted to exercise this right.
It is now denied them under the Conscription Act. Some of them have
appealed to me to see that their rights are protected. As an act of justice
to brave men, who by their deeds of valor have rendered their names im-
mortal, and as an act of duty, which as her Executive I owe to the people of
this State, I must be pardoned for again demanding for the Georgia State
troops, now under your command, permission in all cases in which they
have already been deprived of it, or which may hereafter arise, to have the
company, field, and general officers, who are to command them, appointed by
election, and commissioned from the Executive of Georgia, as guaranteed to
them by the Constitution of tlie Confederacy and the laws of this State.
" I make this demand with tiie greater confidence in view of the past
history of your life. I have not the documents before me, but if I mistake
not. President Polk, during the war against Mexico, in which you were the
colonel of a gallant Mississippi regiment, tendered you the appointment of
brigadier-general for distinguished services upon the battle-field, and you
declined the appointment upon the ground that the President had no light
under the Constitution to appoint a brigadier-general to command the State
volunteers then employed in the service of the United States, but that the
States, and not the General Government, had the right, under the Con-
stitution, to make such appointments. If Congress could not at that time
confer upon the President the right under the Constitution to appoint a
brigadier-general to command State troops in the service of the Confederacy,
Congress certainly cannot now, under the same constitutional provisions,
confer upon the President the right to appoint, not only the brigadier-gen-
erals, but also all the field and company officers of State troops employed
in the service of the Confederacy. May I not reasonably hope that the
right for which I contend will be speedily recognized, and that you will give
392 CORRESPONDENCE OF PRESIDENT DAVIS
notice to tlie Georgia State troops, now under your control, who went into
service under requisitions made upon tlie State by you, that they will no
longer be denied the practical benefit resulting from the recognition.
"You conclude jour letter by saying, 'you cannot share the alarm and
concern about State rights which I so evidently feel.' I regret that you can-
not. The views and opinions of the best of men, are, however, influenced
more or less by the positions in which they are placed, and the circumstances
by which they are surrounded. It is probably not unnatural that those who
administer the affairs and dispense the patronage of a confederation of
States should become, to some e.xtent, biased in favor of the claims of the
Confederacy when its powers are questioned; while it is equally natural that
those who administer the affairs of the States, and are responsible for the
protection of their rights, should be the first to sound the alarm, in case of
encroachments by the Confederacy, which tend to the subversion of the
rights of the States. This principle of human nature may be clearly traced
in the history of the government of the United States. While that govern-
ment encroached upon the rights of the States from time to time, and was
fast concentrating the whole power in its own hands, it is worthy of remark,
that the' Federal Executive, exercising the vast powers and dispensing the
immense patronage of his position, has seldom, if ever, been able to ' .<hare
in the alarm and concern about State rights,' which have on so many oc-
casions been felt by the authorities and people of the respective States.
" With renewed assurances of my high consideration and esteem,
" I am, very respectfully,
" Your obedient servant,
"Joseph E. Brown."
Copy of a Letter to Pkesident Davis, to wnicii no
KEPLY HAS BEEN RECEIVED.
"Canton, Ga., Oct. 18, 1862.
"HIS EXCELLENCY, JEFFERSON DAVIS:
Dear Sir .-—The Act of Congress passed at its late session extending the
Conscription Act, unlike its predecessor, of which it is amendatory, gives you
power, in certain contingencies, of the happening of which you must be the
judge, to suspend its operation, and accept troops from the States under any
of the former acts upon that subject. By former acts you were authorized to
accept troops from the States organized into companies, battalions and regi-
ments. The Conscription Act of 16th of April last repealed these acts, but
the late act revives them when you suspend it.
" For the reasons then given, I entered my protest against the first Con-
scription Act on account of its unconstitutionality, and refused to permit the
enrolment of any State officer, civil or military, who was necessary to the iu-
AND GOV. BROWN UPON CONSCRIPTION. 393
tegrity of the State government. But on account of the emergencies of the
country, growing out of tlie neglect of the Confederate authorities to call
upon the States for a sufficient amount of additional force to supply the
places of the twelve-months troops, and on accountof the repeal of the former
laws upon that subject, having, for the time, placed it out of your power to
accept troops organized by the States in the constitutional mode, I inter-
posed no active resistance to the enrolment of persons in this State between
eighteen and thirty-five, who were not officers necessary to the maintenance
of the government of the State.
" The first Conscription Act took from the State only part of her military
force. She retained her officers and all her militia between thirty-five and
forty-five. Her military organization was neither disbanded nor destroyed.
She had permitted a heavy draft to be made upon it, witnout constitutional
authority, rather than her fidelity to our cause should be questioned, or
the enemy shoakl gain any advantage growing out of what her authorities
might consider unwise councils. But she still retained an organization, sub-
ject to the command of her constituted authorities, which she could use for
the protection of her public property, the execution of her laws, the repul-
sion of invasion, or the suppression of servile insurrection which our insid-
ious foe now proclaims to the world that it is his intention to incite, which
if done may result in an indiscriminate massacre of helpless women and
children.
"At this critical period in our public affairs, when it is absolutely neces-
sary that each State keep an orfjanization for home protection. Congress, with
your sanction, has extended the Conscription Act to embrace all between
thirty-five and forty-five subject to military duty, giving you the power to
suspend the act as above stated. If you refuse to exercise this power and
are permitted to take all between thirty-five and forty-five as conscripts,
you disband and destroy all military organization in this State, and leave her
people utterly powerless to protect their own families, even against their own
slaves. Not only so, but you deny to those between thirty-five and forty-five
a privilege of electing the officers to command them, to which, under the
Constitution of the Confederacy and the laws of this State, they are clearly
entitled, which has been allowed to other troops from the State, and was, to
a limited extent, allowed even to those between eighteen and thirty-five
under the act of 16th April, as that act did allow them thirty days within
which to volunteer, under such officers as they might select, who chanced at
the time to have commissions from the War Department to raise regiments.
"If you deny this rightful privilege to those between thirty-five and forty-
five, and refuse to accept them as volunteers with officers selected by them in
accordance with the laws of their State, and attempt to compel them to enter
the service as conscripts, my opinion is, your orders will only be obeyed by
many of them when backed by an armed force which they have no power to
resist.
394 CORRESPONDENCE OF PRESIDENT DAVIS
" The late act, if I construe it correctly, does not give those between thirty-
five and forty-five the privilege under any circumstances of volunteering and
forming themselves into regimental organizations, but compels them to enter
the present organizations as privates under officers heretofore selected by
others, until all the present organizations are filled to their maximum
number.
" This injustice can only be avoided by the exercise of the power given you
to suspend the act, and call upon the States for organized companies, battal-
ions and regiments. I think the history of the past justifies me in saying
that the public interest cannot suffer by the adoption of this course. When
you made a requisition upon me in the early part of February last, for twelve
regiments, I had them all, with a large additional number in the field, subject
to your command and ready for service, in about one month. It has now
been over six months since the passage of the first Conscription Act, and
your officers during that time have not probably enrolled and carried into
service from this State conscripts exceeding one-fourth of the number
furnished by me as volunteers in one month, while the expense of getting
the conscripts into service has probably been four times as much as it cost
to get four times the number of volunteers into the field.
"In consideration of these facts I trusty you will not hesitate to exercise
the power given you by the Act of Congress and make an early requisition
(which I earnestly invite) upon the Executive of this State for her just quota
of the additional number of troops necessary to be called out to meet the
hosts of the invader — the troops to be organized into companies, battalions,
and regiments, in accordance with the laws of this State.
" Tiie prompt and patriotic response made by the people of Georgia to
every call for volunteers justifies the reasonable expectation that I shall be
able to fill your requisition in a short time after it is made and authorizes
me in advance to pledge prompt compliance. This can be done, too, when
left to the State authorities, in such way as not to disband nor destroy her
military organization at home, which must be kept in existence to be used
in case of servile insurrection or other pressing necessity.
"If you should object to other new organizations on the ground that they
are not efficient, I beg to invite your attention to the conduct of the newly
organized regiments of Greorgians, and indeed of troops from all the States,
upon the plains of Manassas, in the battles before Richmond, upon James
Island near Charleston, at Shiloh, at Richmond, Kentucky, and upon every
battle-field whenever and wherever they have met the invading forces. If it
is said that some of our old regiments are almost decimated, not having more
than enough men in a regiment to form a single company, that it is too ex-
pensive to keep these small bands in the field as regiments, and that justice
to the officers requires that they be filled up by conscripts, I reply, that in-
justice should never be done to the troops for the purpose of saving a few
dollars of expense; and that justice to the men now called into the field as
AND GOV. BROWN UPON CONSCRIPTION. 395
imperatively requires that they shall have the privilege allowed to other
troops to exercise the coustitutional right of entering the service under offi-
cers selected and appointed as directed by the laws of their own State as it
does that officers in service shall not be deprived of their commands when
their regiments are worn out or destroyed.
'• Our officers have usually exposed themselves in the van of the fight and
shared the fate of their men. Hence but few of the original experienced
officers who went to the field with our old regiments, which have won so bright
a name in history, now survive, but their places have been filled by others
appointed in most cases by the President. They have, therefore, no. just
cause to claim that the right of election which belongs to every Georgian
shall be denied to all who are hereafter to enter the service for the purpose
of sustaining them in the offices which tiiey now fill.
"If it becomes necessary to disband any regiment on account of its small
numbers, let every officer and private be left perfectly free to unite with such
new volunteer association as he thinks proper, and in the organization and
selection of officers it is but reasonable to suppose that modest merit and
experience will not be overlooked.
"The late Act of Congress, if executed in this State, not only does gross
injustice to a large class of her citizens, utterly destroys all State military
organizations, and encroaches upon the reserved rights of the State, but
strikes down her sovereignty at a single blow and tears from her the right
arm of strength by which she alone can maintain her existence and protect
those most dear to her and most dependent upon her. The representatives
of the people will meet in General Assembly on the 6th day of next month,
and I feel that I should be recreant to the high trust reposed in me were I to
permit the virtual destruction of the Government of the State before they
shall have had time to convene, deliberate, and act.
" Referring, in connection with the considerations above mentioned, to
our former correspondence, for the reasons which satisfy my mind beyond
doubt of the unconstitutionality of the Conscription Acts, and to the fact
that a judge in this State, of great ability, in a case regularly brought before
him in his judicial capacity, has pronounced the law unconstitutional; and
to the further fact that Congress has lately passed an additional Act author-
izing you to suspend the privilege of the writ of Habeas Corpus, doubtless
with a view of denying to the judiciary in this very case the exercise of its
constitutional functions for the protection of personal liberty, I can no longer
avoid the responsibility of discharging a duty which I owe to the people of
this State by informing you that I cannot permit the enrolment of conscripts
under the late Act of Congress entitled ' An Act to amend the Act further to
provide for the common defence,' until the General Assembly of this State
shall have convened and taken action in the premises.
" The plea of necessity set up for conscription last spring, when I withheld
active resistance to a very heavy draft upon the military organization of the
396 CORRESPONDENCE OF PRESIDENT DAVIS
State under the first Conscription Act, cannot be pleaded after the brilliant
successes of our gallant armies during the summer and fall campaign which
have been achieved by troops \p\lio entered the service, not as conscripts, but
as volunteers. If more troops are needed to meet coming emergencies, call
upon the State and you shall have them as volunteers much more rapidly than
your enrolling officers cau drag conscripts, like slaves 'in chains,' to camps of
instruction. And who that is not blinded by prejudice or ambition can
doubt that they will be much more effective as volunteers than as conscripts?
The volunteer enters tlie service of his own free will. He regards the war
as much his own as the Government's war; and is ready, if need be, to offer
his life a willing sacrifice upon his country's altar. Hence it is tliat our vol-
unteer armies have been invincible when contending against vastly superior
numbers with every advantage which the best equipments and supplies can
afford. Not so with the conscript. He may be as ready as any citizen of the
State to volunteer if permitted to enjoy the constitutional rights which have
been allowed to others in the choice of his officers and associates. But if
these are denied him and he is seized like a serf and hurried into an associa-
tion repulsive to his feelings and placed under officers in whom he has no
confidence, he then feels that this is the Government's war, not his ; that he
is the mere instrument of arbitrary power, and that he is no longer laboring
to establish constitutional liberty, but to build up a military despotism for its
ultimate but certain overthrow. Georgians will never refuse to volunteer as
long as there is an enemy upon our soil and a call for their services. But if
I mistake not the signs of the times they will require the Government to
respect their plain constitutional rights.
"Surely no just reason exists why you should refuse to accept volunteers
when tendered, and insist on replenishing your armies by conscription and
coercion of freemen.
" The question then is not whether you shall have Georgia's quota of
troops, for they are freely o^ered—lendereil in advance — but it is whether you
shall accept tliem when tendered as volunteers, organized as the Constitution
and laws direct, or shall, when the decision is left with you, insist on reject-
ing volunteers and dragging the free citizens of this State into your armies
as conscripts. No Act of the Government of the United States prior to the
secession of Georgia struck a blow at constitutional liberty so fell as has
been stricken by the Conscription Acts. The people of this State had ample
cause, however, to justify their separation from the old Government. They
acted coolly and deliberately in view of all the responsibilities ; and they
stand ready to-day to sustain their action at all hazards and to resist sub-
mission to the Lincoln Government and the reconstruction of the old Union
to the expenditure of their last dollar and tlie sacrifice of their last life.
Having entered into the revolution freemen, they intend to emerge from it
freemen. And if I mistake not the character of the sons, judged by the
action of their fathers against Federal encroachments under Jackson, Troup,
AND GOV. BROWN UPON CONSCRIPTION. 397
and Gilmer, respectively, as executive officers, they will refuse to yield their
sovereignty to usurpation and will require the Government, which is the
common agent of all the States, to move within the sphere assigned it by the
Constitution.
" Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
"Joseph E. Brown."
CHAPTER XII.
Correspondence of Governor Brown and A. Fullar-
TON, British Consul at Savannah.
In July, 1863, Governor Brown, desiring to raise for
home defence a force of eight thousand men not in the
Confederate army, issued a call for volunteers accom-
panied by an order for a draft, in the event a sufficient
number of men did not respond. This order included all
persons between the ages of eighteen and forty-five years,
of citizens as well as foreign subjects residing within the
State. It drew out from the Hon. A. Fullarton, British
consul at Savannah, a strong protest in behalf of those
subjects of his government who asked his protection,
which led to an able, sharp, and interesting correspond-
ence upon the subject of the liability of foreign subjects
to compulsory service, which we present entire.
" BRITISH CONSULATE, \
Savannah, July 22, 1863. ' )
" TO HIS EXCELLENCY GOV. BROWN, Marietta :
" Sir: — My attention has been called to your proclamation, and to General
Wayne's general order No. 16 attached thereto, ordering a draft on the 4th
of August from persons between the ages of eighteen and forty-five years, in-
cluding British subjects, in each county which does not furnish its quota of
volunteers to complete the number of 8,000 men required for home defence.
"I am informed that this force when organized is to be turned over to the
Confederate government. British subjects, if drafted, will then be forced to
become Confederate soldiers, a position in which Her Majesty's government
have, since the commencement of the war, contended they ought not to be
placed, and from w'hich Her Majesty's consuls have been instructed to use
every means at their command to preserve them.
" Her Majesty's government acknowledges the right of a foreign State to
CORRESPONDENCE. 399
claim the services of British subjects resident within its limits, for the pur-
pose of maintaining interna] order (in other words, to act as a local police
force), and even, to a limited extent, to defend against local invasion by a for-
eign power the places of their residence ; but they deny the claim to services
beyond this, and accordingly I have given advice in the following sense to
British subjects who have applied to me on the subject of this draft : that
militia duty is in general an obligation incident to foreign residence, and
that therefore they must not object to render the service required so long as
the law requires a militia organization for the maintenance of internal peace
and order. But if it shall so happen that the militia, after being so organ-
ized, shall be brought into conflict with the forces of the United States with-
out being turned over to the Confederate States so as to form a component
part of its armies, or if it should be so turned over, in either event, the serv-
ice required would be such as British subjects cannot be expected to per-
form ; in the first case, in addition to the ordinary accidents of war, they
would be liable to be treated as rebels and traitors, and not as prisoners of
war ; and in the second case, they would be under the operation of a law (re-
quiring them to take up arms against the United States government), which
had no existence when for commercial purposes they first took up their
residence in this country, and would, moreover, be disobeying the order of
their legitimate sovereign, which exhorts them to an observance of the strict-
est neutrality, and subjects them to severe penalties. For all local service,
however, short of the service I have endeavored to describe, I have advised
them that the militia organization is lawful and should be acquiesced in by
resident British subjects.
" Nearly all British subjects have besides taken an oath that they will not,
under any circumstances, take part in the contest now raging in this coun-
try by taking up arms on either side.
"I hope, sir, you will therefore so modify the general order in respect of
British subjects who have certificates from me, as to release them from a posi-
tion which, in the event of a draft, will certainly render them liable to all
the penalties denounced by their own sovereign against a violation of their
neutrality, calling upon them at the same time to render service as local
police for the maintenance of internal peace and order.
" On a former occasion, Mr. Molyneux advised you that the consulate was
placed under my charge during his absence. I recently submitted my au-
thority to act as Iler Majesty's consul to Mr. Benjamin, who duly ac-
corded to me his approval and recognition.
'' I am, sir, your most obedient servant,
" A. FuLLARTON, Acting Consul."
400 COERESPONDENCE OF GOV. BROWN
" Marietta, August 8, 1863.
".MR. A. FULLARTOX, Acting Consui. of Great Britain:
'■'■ Dear Sir : — Your letter of 22d July leached these headquartors during
my absence, wliich has caused delay in my reply.
''Judging from your communication, I am obliged to conclude that you
have not correctly understood the objects of the government in organizing
the 8,000 men for home defence.
" You admit the right of the State to claim the services of British subjects
resident within its limits for the purpose of maintaining ' internal order,'
and even to a limited extent to defend the places of their residence against
local invasion hy a foreign poxcer. In view of this correct admission on your
part, I do not deem it necessary to quote authority to show the obligation of
Her Majesty's subjects to render the service now called for. To niaintaia
' internal order,' and to defend to delimited extent ' against local invasion by a
foreign power,' are the sole objects of the proposed military organization,
" While the men are to be mustered into service for the purpose of afford-
ing them the rights and privileges of prisoners of war, in case of capture by
the enemy, and to enable the government to command them without delay
in case of sudden emergency, it is not proposed to take them from their
homes, or to interrupt their ordinary avocations, unless it be a case of sudden
emergency or pressing necessity, for the defence of their homes, or such local-
ities as command their homes, when in the hands of the enemy.
"The government of the United States, in violation of the usages of civil-
ized warfare, is now resorting to every means within its power to incite servile
insurrection in our midst. It is not only stealing our slaves, which are private
property, or taking them by open robbery, mustering them into its sirvice,
and arming them against us, but it is doing all it can by secret agencies, to
stir up and excite the angry passion of the mass of ignorant slaves in the in-
terior, whom it can neither reach hy theft nor robbery, to cause them to rise
in rebellion against their masters, with whom they are now comfortable and
happy, and to set fire to our cities, towns, villages, and other property. It is
needless for me to add that in case they should be successful in inciting in-
surrection to this point, the butchery of helpless women and children will
doubtless be the result.
" As a means of accomplishing this object, as well as of destroying public
and private property, the enemy is now preparing to send cavalry raids as
far as possible into this and other States of the Confederacy. These robber
bands will, no doubt, burn and destroy property where they go, carry off as
many slaves as they can, and attempt to stir up others with whom they come
in contact, to insurrection, robbery, and murder.
" It is not expected that the 8,000 men called for by my proclamation, and
the general order to which you refer, will be used against the regular armies
of the United States. The provisional armies of the Confederate States have
shown themselves fully able to meet the enemy upon an hundred battle-fields,
AND THE BEITISH CONSUL. 401
and to drive them back with severe chastisement, wherever they have not
had the advantage of their navy as a support. But it is expected that this
home organization, while it may be but little of its time in actual service,
will, in case of sudden emergency, assist in repelling the plundering bands of
the enemy, which evade contact with our armies, and make predatory incur-
sions to our very homes for the purposes already mentioned, and that they
will assist in suppressing any servile insurrections which these plundering
parties may be able to incite.
" Many who claim to be Her Majesty's subjects in this State are large slave-
holders, whose danger of loss of property and of insult and cruel injury to
their wives and children, in case of insurrection, is as great as the danger to
the citizens of this State, and their obligation to protect their property and
their families against the local aggressions of the United States forces is no
less.
" While Her Majesty's government has constantly refused to recognize the
existence of the government of the Confederate States, her subjects have en-
joyed its protection. And while she refuses to hold any diplomatic relations
with us, you, as her representative, are permitted to represent her interests
here, and to be heard for the protection of her subjects and their property.
In this state of things, British subjects who still elect to remain in the Con-
federacy should not expect to do less than the service now required of them ;
and while free egress will in no case be denied them, should they desire to
depart from this State, less than the service now required will not in future
be demanded, in case they choose to remain in the State and enjoy its pro-
tection.
"Experience has convinced the government at Washington of its inability,
by armed force in the battle-field, to combat Southern valor and compel us to
submit to its despotic tyranny. It has, therefore, in connection with that
above mentioned, adopted the further policy of destroying agricultural imple-
ments, mills, and provisions, wherever its armies penetrate into our country,
with a view of effecting by starvation that which it cannot accomplish by the
skill and courage of its troops.
" As a further auxiliary to the accomplishment of this object, it drives from
the territory overrun by its armies, the men, women and children who are
true to the government of their choice, and compels them to seek safety and
support in this and other interior States. It thus taxes the productions of
the interior States with the support, not only of their own population and the
armies of the Confederacy, but of a large number of refugees. With the
blessings of Divine Providence, which, thanks to His name, have been so
abundantly showered upon us, we are, by abandoning the culture of cotton,
making ample supplies for another year. While we are surrounded by such
an enemy, the British government cannot fail to see and appreciate the rea-
son why we cannot afford to retain and protect among us a class of con-
sumers who produce none of the necessaries of life, and who refuse to take
26
402 CORRESPONDENCE OF GOV. BROWN
up arms for interior or local defence, but claim the privilege of remaining as
subjects of foreign powers, engaged in commercial pur&uits, in ports with
which their government recognizes no legal commerce.
" But you insist that there was no law in existence requiring British sub-
jects to take up arms against the United States government, when for com-
mercial purposes they first took up their residence in the country. You
must not forget, however, in tliis connection, that at that time the State of
Georgia was by her own sovereign consent, a component part of the govern-
ment of the United States, and that since that time she has, for just cause,
withdrawn her consent to further connection with the aggressive States of
the North, and now with her Southern sisters forms the government of
the Confederate States, against which the States which remain united under
the name of United States, are waging a cruel and unjust war. With this
change in the political relations of the country, new obligations are imposed
upon the subjects of foreign powers resident within this and other Southern
States, which make it tlieir duty t ) aid in the maintenance of internal order
and in the protection of their domiciles and the localities where they are
situated, when assailed by the troops of the United States government, or to
depart from the States and seek protection elsewhere. Again, the com-
mercial reasons which you say caused Her Majesty's subjects to take up
their residence here, cea-:ed to exist when Her Majesty's government refused
longer to recognize the existence of legal commerce between her subjects
and the citizens of this State and warned them of the loss of her protection
if they attempted to carry on commercial relations with us through our ports.
" At the time English subjects took up their residence among our people
for commercial purposes, our ports were open to the commerce of the world,
and foreign governments which had commercial treaties with us had a right
to claim for their subjects engaged in commerce the usual commercial
privileges and protection while domiciled here.
" Xow the government of the United States claims that it has our porta
blockaded ; and wliile the whole civilized world knows that the blockade is
not effective, and that vessels enter and clear almost daily at our ports,
the government of Her Majesty chooses to recognize it as a legal blockade,
and to acquiesce in the paper prohibition which excludes English subjects
with their commerce from our ports. If the British government adopts the
pretensions of the government of the United States, and holds that Charleston
and Savannah are still ports belonging to the United States, it must be
admitted that the blockade of these ports by the United States government
is a palpable violation of the commercial treaty stipulations between the
two governments, as the United States government has no riglit, under
these- treaties, to blockade her own ports against English commerce. If
tested by the laws of nations, to which the British government is a party, it
is no blockade because not effective. Under these circumstances if the gov-
ernment of Her Majesty consents to respect the orders of the United States
AND THE BRITISH CONSUL. 403
government, which forbid British subjects to enter our ports for commercial
purposes, that government has no right, wliile this state of things continues,
to claim commercial privileges for its subjects witbiu the ports where it
admits the existence of a legal blockade ; but it must expect those subjects
to depart from these ports, aud if they refuse to do so, it has no just cause
of complaint when the government having possession of these ports compels
them to take up arms to defend their domiciles against servile insurrection or
the attacks of the troops of a hostile power.
" I learn from your letter that ' nearly ail British subjects have taken an
oath that they will not, under any circumstances, take part in the contest
now raging in this country, b\' taking up arms on either side.' In reply to
this, permit me to remind you that no such self-imposed obligation can free
the subjects of Iler Majesty who choose to remain in this State, from the
higher obligation, which, by the laws of nations, they are under to the
State for protection while they remain within its limits.
" While I beg to assure you that it is the sincere desire of the government
and people of this State, to cultivate the most friendly relations with her
Majesty's government and people, I feel it my duty, for the reasons already
given, to decline any modification of the order to which you refer in your
commuuication.
"With high consideration and esteem, I am,
" Very respectfully,
" Your obedient servant,
"Joseph E. Brown."
" BRITISH CONSULATE, {
Savannah, Aug. 17, 1863. j
"TO HIS EXCELLENCY GOVERNOR BROWN, Marietta :
" Sir: — I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your Excellency's
letter of the 8th inst.
" I perfectly understood the intentions of the government in organizing
the force of 8,000 men for home defence, but I am obliged to conclude that
you have misunderstood me when I admitted the liglit of a State to claim
the services of British subjects resident within its limits for the purpose of
maintaining internal order, and even to a limited extent, to defend the
places of their residence against local invasion by a foreign power. Such
service might be rendered by them in the event of a war by a foreign power,
but not in a civil war like that which now rages on this continent.
" Her Majesty's government consider that the plainest notions of reason
and justice forbid that a foreigner admitted to reside for peaceful purposes
in a State forming part of a Federal Union should be compelled by that State
to take an active part in hostilities against other States which when he be-
came a resident were members of one and the same Confederacy. While
404 CORRESPONDENCE OF GOV. BROWN
acknowlerlging the I'ighfc of the State, under present circumstances, to the
services of British subjects for patrol or police duty. Her Majesty's govern-
ment object to any further extension of such service. I have consequently,
under instructions, felt myself compelled to advise those drafted to acquiesce
in the duty until they are required to leave their immediate homes or to
meet the United States forces in actual conflict ; in that event to throw down
their arms and refuse to render a service the performance of which would
run directly in the teeth of Her Majesty's proclamation and render them
liable to the severe penalties denounced against a violation of the strict neu-
trality so strongly insisted on in that document, trusting to my interference
in their behalf with the Government at Richmond under whose command
they will be. In other States, British subjects imprisoned for following this
advice, have already been discharged from custody and service by order of
the War Department.
" Your Excellency is pleased to inform me tliat with the change in the
political relations of the country new obligations are imposed on the subjects
of Her Majesty resident in the South. I do not see why this should be so
seeing that they, by reason of their being aliens, had no voice whatever in
the councils which brought about the present state of affairs. With regard
to the protection afforded by the State to an alien, it appears to me to extend
little beyond the safety of life, a guaranty which every civilized community
for its own sake extends to every sojourner in its midst. You need not be
told that the law of Georgia forbids an alien to hold certain kinds of prop-
erty ; and I cannot see how a thing can be protected which is not suffered to
exist. I have nothing to do with British subjects who hold such property in
violation of law, but I do protest against the compulsory service in a civil
■war of those who have never contravened the law in this respect.
"It is satisfactory to know that the option of leaving the country is al-
lowed to British subjects and that no obstacle will be thrown in the way of
those who prefer to do so rather than violate the Queen's imperative orders
by meeting in warfare the United States forces. If compelled to take this
course, however, I may be permitted to say that the comity usually observed
between foreign States is not very scrupulously observed.
" I have reason to know that many who have not hitherto been molested,
are, in consequenceof your Excellency's proclamation, preparing to leave, not
afew among them being mechanics worth little or no property, of whose inesti-
mable services, at this crisis, the Confederacy will be deprived. Am I to un-
derstand that those already drafted may avail themselves of this alternative?
" The dispatches which I have received from the British government rela-
tive to compulsory service are strong. I am instructed to remonstrate in the
strongest terms against all attempts to force British subjects to take up arms.
Should these remonstrances fail, 'the governments in Europe interested in
this question will unite in making such representations as will secure to aliens
this desired exemption.'
AND THE BKITISH CONSUL. 405
"It has hitherto been in my power to report to Her Majesty's government
that her subjects have not been called upon to take up arms in this war. I
regret tliat your Excellency's decision makes it impossible to do so hereafter ;
the more so as the course pursued contrasts so stronjily with the conduct of
the United States government, who have conceded the claim of bona fide
British subjects to exemption fi'om any military service whatever, and also
■with that of the Governors of other Southern States who, upon representa-
tion, ordered the di-charge of British subjects forcibly detained in service.
" I am, sir, your most obedient servant,
" A. FuLLARTON, Acting Consul."
" Marietta, August 26, 1863.
" MR. A. FULLARTON, Acting Consul of Great Britain :
'' Dear Sir : — In your letter of the 17th inst. now before me you conclude
that I misunderstood you when you admitted the right of the State to claim
the services of British subjects resident within its limits to defend, to a
limited extent, the places of their residence against local invasion by a for-
eign power. You are pleased to say that such service might be rendered by
them in the event of a war by a 'foreign power,' but not in a cicil warlike
that which now rages on this continent. Then you still admit that, by tlie
laws of nations. Her Majesty's subjects resident in this State may be com-
pelled to render the service now required; in other words, to difend the
places of their residence against local invasion by a foreign power. And it
follows, you being the judge, that the claim now made upon Her Majesty's
subjects for service is in accordance with the laws of nations, if the Confed-
erate States, of which Georgia is one, are at war with a foreign power. But
in your attempt to escape the just conclusion which results from your ad-
missions you virtually deny that the United States is a foreign power and
claim that Georgia is still a component part of the Government of tiie United
States. You have probably been influenced in your persistence in this error
by the forbearance of the Government and people of the Confederate States
in permitting Her Majesty's consuls to remain among us in the exercise of
the functions of a position to which they were originally accredited by the
Government of the United States. As it is no part of my purpose to enter
into an argument to convince you that the United States is a hostile power
foreign to Georgia, I will dismiss this part of the controversy with the single
remark, that if your pretensions be correct, your appeal for the protection of
British subjects resident within this State should have been made to the
Government at Washington and not to me.
"You are pleased to inform me that you have felt compelled to advise
those drafted to acquiesce in the duty until they are required to leave their
immediate homes, or to meet the United States forces in actual conflict — in
that event to throw down their arms and refuse to render a service, the per-
406 CORRESPONDENCE OF GOV. 15R0WN
formance of which would run directly in the teeth of Her Majesty's procla-
mation, etc. It is worthy of remark that the language you employ is ' to
leave their immediate homes, or to meet the United Stites forces in actual
conflict.' Your advice tiien to Britisli subjects, if I correctly understand it,
is that when the United States forces attack the immediate locality of their
homes or their own houses, they are not to defend them as required by the
laws of nations against such local invasion, but they are to throw down their
arms and refuse to fight for the protection of tlieir domiciles. In reply to
this, it is my duty to inform you that I can neitlier be bound by your pre-
tensions that the United States is not a power foreign to Georgia, nor can I
admit the right of Her Majesty by proclamation to change the laws of
nations, and insist upon maintaining her subjects here and exempting them
from tlie pierforraance of the duties imposed U|>on them Vjy the laws of
nations. When the troops now drafted liave been turned over to the govern-
ment of the Confederate States to be held in readiness to repel local inva-
sion, if they should, upon the ap|)roach of an hostile force, follow your
advice and throw down their arms, that government will hnve the power to
pardon for such conduct, or to strike their names from its muster rolls if it
chooses to do so ; but if an attempt sliould be made by the enemy upon the
immediate locality of their homes, while I control and command the forces
to wlrcli they are attached, and thej' should be guilt\' of conduct so un-
natural and unmanly as to throw down their arms and refuse to defend
their domiciles, they will be promptly dealt with as citizens of this State would
be, should they be guilty of such dishonorable delinquency.
" In another part of your letter j'ou take occasion to say that you do not
see wh)' the change in the political relations of this country has im|i0sed new
obligations upon the subjects of Her Majesty, as they had no voice in the
councils whicli brought about the present st.ite of affairs. With the same
reason you might say that you cannot see why the laws of nations require
British subjects in any case to defend their domiciles when located in a foreign
country against the local invasion of another foreign power when they had
no voice in the councils which formed the government in which they are per-
mitted to reside. 1 insist that British subjects resident within its limits,
though they had no voice in the formation of the new government, owe
the same service to it when established which they owed before its formation
to tlie government whose power originally extended over its territorj' and
embraced tlieir homes; and that they are bound to conform their conduct to
the new order of things or to seek homes and protection elsewhere.
" But I am informed by your letter that, with regard to the protection
afforded by the State to an alien, it appears to vou to extend little beyond
the safety of life. And as the laws of Georgia forbid an alien to hold certain
kinds of property you cannot see how a thing can be protected which is not
suffered to exist.
" Upon the first point I need only remind you that our courts are at all
AND THE BKITISH CONSUL. 407
times open to aliens belonging to friendly powers for tlie re Iress of their
wrongs, and that the same protection is extended to their persons and all the
property they legally possess which is enjoyed by citizens of this State.
"I trust a re-examination of the laws of your own country would satisfy
your mind upon the other point, as you will there find that the laws of Great
Britain forbid an alien to hold 'certain kinds of property,' and it is the boast
of that Government that it protects aliens who reside within its jurisdiction.
The laws of Great Britain in reference to the right of aliens to hold certain
kinds of property while domiciled in that kingdom are certainly not more
liberal to the citizens of Georgia than the laws of Georgia are to the subjects
of Great Britain.
"While I am unable to perceive the justice of your complaint in the par-
ticulars last mentioned, it is gratifying to know that there is no law of
nations or of this State which throws any obstructions in the way of the
removal of any British subject from the State who is not satisfied with the
privileges and protection which he enjoys, you remind me, however, that not a
few of them are mechanics, of whose inestimable services at this crisis the Con-
federacy will be deprived in case of their removals. These mechanics have
no doubt remained in this State because they felt it their interest to remain.
And in reference to them this State will very cheerfully adopt the rule which
generally controls the British governirient. She will consult her own interest,
and will exempt from military service for local defence, such mechanics who
are aliens as choose to remain and will be more serviceable in that capacity.
"I reply in the affirmative to your inquiry whether aliens already drafted
may avail themselves of the alternative of leaving the State in preference
to rendering the service. AVhile an alien will not be permitted to evade the
service by leaving the State temporarily during the emergency, and then
returning, his right to leave permanently when he chooses will not be ques-
tioned. I do not insist that an alien shall remain here to serve the State,
but I contend that while he chooses to remain under the protection of the
State he is bound by the laws of nations and of this State to obey her call
to defend his domicile against insurrection or local invasion.
'' This, I apprehend, is all that is intended to be claimed by your govern-
ment in the instructions which you quote. While the British government
has a right to demand that its subjects shall not be detained here against
their will, and compelled to take up arms on either side, it certainly would
not place itself before the world in the false position of insisting on the right
of its subjects to remain in another State, contrary to the the wish of the gov-
ernment of such State and to be exempt from the service which, by the
common consent of nations, such State has a right to demand.
" You conclude your letter by informing me that my decision contrasts
strongly with the conduct of the United States government, who have con-
ceded the claim of bona fide British subjects to exemption from any military
service whatever.
408 CORRESPONDENCE OF GOV. BROWN
" As the United States government is the invading party in this vrar, and
can but seldom need the services of Biitisli sulijects to defend tlieir domiciles,
which are scarcely ever subject to inviisioii. as it has no ri^iht under tlie laws
of nations to compel them to bear arms in its invading armies, as it is not
in a condition to be compelled to economize its supply of provi-ions, and as
it is reported that it has, by the use of money, drawn large numbers of recruits
for its armies from the dominions of Her M.jesty, in violation of the laws of
her realm, it may well afford to affect a pretended liberality, which costs it
neither sacrifice nor inconvenience. But you say that my decision also con-
trasts strongly ' with that of the Governors of other Southern States, who,
upon representation, ordered the discharge of British subjects forcibly
detained in service.' In a former part of your letter when speaking of the
advice given to British subjects to throw down their arms, in case tliey
should be required to meet the United States forces in actual conflict, you
use this sentence : 'In other States British subjects imprisoned for fdUuwing
this advice have already been discharged from custody and service by order
of the AVar Department,' Excuse me for remarking that these two sen-
tences contrast so strongly with each other that I am unable to understand
why it became necessary for the War Dei)artment to interfere and discharge
British subjects imprisoned in other States for throwing down their arms
and refusing to fight, if the Governors of those States had, upon representa-
tion, in all cases ordered the discharge of British subjects forcibly detained in
service.
" Trusting that my position is fully understood by you, and that it may
not be necessary to protract this discussion, I am, with high consideration
and esteem,
" Very respectfully, your ob't serv't,
" Joseph E. Bro^vn."
" BRITISH consulatp:, >
Savannah, Sept. 12, 1863. |
"TO HIS EXCELLENCY GOVERNOR BROWN, Marietta :
" .Sir;— In your letter of the 26 ult., your Excellency informed me that
aliens already drafted may avail themselves of the alternative of leaving
the State in preference to rendering service. I have now the honor, there-
fore, to request your Excellency to'issue orders to your officers to grant J. D.
and F. M. Kiely, two drafted subjects, residents of Rome, Ga., leave to quit
the State, and permission to remain unmolested in Rome 30 days to settle
their affairs in that city.
" 1 am, sir, your most obedient servant,
" A. Fullarton, Acting Consul."
AND THE BEITISH CONSUL. 409
" Marietta, September 14, 1863.
"MR. A. FULLARTOX, Acting Consul of Great Britain:
^^ Dear Sir: — I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your commu-
nication of the 12th inst., in which you request me to issue orders to the
commanding officers to grant J. D. and F. M. Kiely, two drafted British sub-
jects, residents of Rome, Ga., leave to quit the State and to remain unmo-
lested in Rome thirty days to settle theli- affairs in that city. This permis-
sion will be cheerfully granted upon the production to me of sufficient evidence
that the persons named are British subjects.
" By an ordinance of the convention of this State, representing her people
and her sovereignty, passed on the 16th day of March, 1861, it is declared:
" ' That all white persons resident in this State at the time of the secession
of the State from the United States with the bona file intention of making it
the place of their permanent abode, shall be considered as citizens of this
State without reference to their place of birth ; provided, that any person not
born in this State can exempt him or herself from the operation of this
ordinance by a declaration in any court of record in the State, w'ithin three
months from this date, that he or she does not wish to be considered a citizen
of this State.'
" The ordinance of secession referred to in the above quotation was passed
on the 19th day of January, 1861.
"If the Messrs. Kiely were resident in this State on the 19th day of Jan-
uary, 1861, and did not file their declaration in a court of record in this State
within three months from the 16th day of March, 1861, that they did not
wish to become citizens of this State, they accepted the privileges and obli-
gations of citizenship offered them by the State and ceased to be British sub-
jects, and are consequently not entitled to the leave to quit the State for
which jou ask under my letter of 26th ult. If, however, they became resi-
dents of this State at any time since the 19th day of January, 1861, or, if
they were then residents and filed their declaration as required by the ordi-
nance, within three months after the 16th day of March, 1861, they will be
allowed the thirty days to arrange their affairs as you request, and permitted
to depart from the State at the expiration of that term.
"With high consideration, I am, very respectfully,
" Your obedient servant,
"Joseph E. Brown."
CHAPTER XIII.
Reconstruction of Georgia.
The surrender of the Confederate armies, and conse-
quently the forces of this State ; the arrest and imprison-
ment of the Governor, and consequent cessation of all
civil authority ; and the substitution of military govern-
ment over the State for the time being, — left the people
without government or legal protection, except the will
of local military commanders and their subalterns.
The President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln,
had been assassinated. The Vice-President, Andrew John-
son of Tennessee — a southern Democrat, who had joined
our enemies in the struggle — was by that sudden, ill-ad-
vised, and unfortunate murder, invested with the execu-
tive power of the Union, just as the last, expiring efforts
of the remnant of Confederate powers were being made,
and as the banners that had waved so often in triumph
were being lowered, never to rise again.
President Johnson had been selected from the South,
while hostilities were progressing, and given the second
office of honor in the Union, as a reward of his fidelity to
the Union, and opposition to his own State and to the
South, and his supposed power of disintegration and di-
vision among our " own people. When the executive
power was thus suddenly devolved on him, he chose to
follow the policy that gave him power, by conferring
power and honor on men who had stood opposed to our
cause. He selected and appointed as provisional governor
of Georgia, Honorable James Johnson of Columbus, Geor-
RECOXSTRUCTIOX OF GEORGIA. 411
gia — a man of integrity and ability, thorouglily identified
with the President and Congress in the plans of recon-
struction, acting under instructions from President John-
son, as proclaimed by him.
He required a convention of the State, of delegates
elected by the people. Which body was elected, and met
under his proclamation at Milledgeville, on the 28th Octo-
ber, 1865, composed of two hundred and eighty-five dele-
gates, representiq^ the integrity, virtue, intelligence, and
patriotism of every part of the State. There were many
men of prominence in the State, and some who had been
prominent in the Confederate government, and a large
number who had held responsible and honorable places in
our armies. Many of them have been honored by high
civil commissions since.
Honorable Charles J. Jenkins, a justice of the State su-
preme court for several years past, under the appoint-
ment of Governor Brown, a delegate from Richmond
county, was proposed as the president of the convention.
He declined in favor of Ex-Governor Herschel V. Johnson,
a delegate from Jefferson county, who was elected, and
presided with great dignity, and after a session of fifteen
days, on retiring, delivered to the convention an address
abounding in wisdom, prudence, and patriotism, which was
extensively published with good effect upon the people.
Mr. Jenkins was made chairman of a committee of six-
teen, to report business for the convention; and on the
succeeding day reported — and which was unanimously
adopted :
AN ORDINANCE
" To repeal certain ordinances and resolutions therein mentioned, hereto-
fore passed by the people of the State of Georgia in convention.
" We, the People of the Stale of Georgia in Convention, at our seal of Gov-
ernment, do declare and ordain, That an ordinance adopted by the same
412 RECONSTRUCTION OF GEORGIA.
people, in convention, on the nineteenth day of January, A. D. eighteen hun-
dred and sixty-one, entitled ' An ordinance to dissolve the union between the
State of Georgia and other States united with her under a compact of govern-
ment entitled ''the constitution of the United States of America" ' ; also an or-
dinance, adopted by the same on the sixteenth day of ^larcli in the year last
aforesaid, entitled ' An ordinance to adopt and ratify the constitution of the
Confederate States of America'; and also all ordinances and resolutions of
the same, adopted between the sixteenth day of January and the twenty-
fourth day of March, in the year aforesaid, subversive of, or antagonistic to,
the civil and military authority of the government of the United States of
America, under the constitution thereof, be, and the same are hereby re-
pealed."
He also reported from day to day the constitution of
the State, as its parts were framed and agreed on by the
committee, made to conform to the new state of affairs,
embodvins; in the main the old constitution, which was
adopted, but which, as will appear, was superseded by
another State constitution in 1868.
This convention adopted many ordinances suited to
the emergencies.
There was one which gave the courts employment for
several years : —
AN ORDINANCE
"To make valid private contracts entered into and executed during the
war against the United States, and to authorize the courts of this State to ad-
just the equities between parties to contracts made but not executed, and to
authorize settlements of such contracts by persons acting in a fiduciary char-
acter."
Another, which swept away at a single stroke a large
portion of the remnant of many private fortunes :
AN ORDINANCE
" To render null and void all debts of this State created for the purpose of
carrying on the late war against the United States.
" Be it ordained by the people of Georgia, in convention assembled. That
all debts contracted or incurred by the State of Georgia, either as a separate
State, or as a member of the late partnership or confederacy of States, styled
the Confederate States of America, for the purpose of carrying on the late
KECONSTRUCTIOK OF GEORGIA. 413
war of secession against the United States of America, or for the purpose of
aiding, abetting, or promoting said war in any way, directly or indirectly, be,
and the same are hereby declared null and void; and the Legislature is
hereby prohibited forever from, in any way, acknowledging or paying said
debts, or any part thereof, or from passing any law for that purpose, or to se-
cure or provide for the said debts, or any part thereof, by any appropriation
of money, property, stocks, funds, or assets of any kind to that object."
The debt of the State when the war began was $2,667,-
750. Tliis had been increased $18, 135,775, during the
existence of the war; which sum was rendered null and
void hy this ordinance, consisting in the currency and
bonds of the State issued by her autliority, and in which
a large amount of anti-war securities had been invested:
This course, however, seemed an absolute necessity on
the part of the convention. Provisional Governor John-
son had strongly urged it in his message ; and in order to
put the terms of reconstruction beyond debate upon this
point, he communicated the telegrams from Washington
as follows: —
" Washixgton, October 28.
"TO HIS EXCELLEXCY JAMES E. JOUXSOX:
" Your several telegrams have been received. The President of the United
States cannot recognize the people of any State as having resumed the rela-
tions of loyalty to the Union that admits, as legal obligations, contracts or
debts created on them to promote the war of the rebellion.
(Signed) " William H. Seward.
"Received at Milledgeville, October 29, 1865, by telegraph from Washing-
ton, 28th."
"TO GOVERNOR JOHNSOX:
" Your dispatch has been received. The people of Georgia should not
hesitate one single moment repudiating every single dollar of debt created
for the purpose of aiding the i-ebellion against the government of the United
States. It will not do to levy and collect taxes from a State and people that
are loyal and in the Union, to pay a debt that was created to aid in taking
them out, thereby subverting the Constitution of the United States. I do
not believe the great mass of the people of the State of Georgia, when left
uninfluenced, will ever submit to the payment of a debt which was the main
414 RECONSTKUCTION OF GEORGIA.
cause of bringing on their past and present Buffering, the result of the rebel-
lion. They who vested their capital in creation of tliis debt must meet their
fate, and take it as one of the inevitable results of the rebellion, though it
may seem hard to them. It should at once be made known at home and
abroad, that no debt contracted for the purpose of dissolving the union of
the States, can or will be paid by taxes levied on the people for such pur-
poses."
(Signed) " Andrew Johnson,
" President U, S."
By which it appears, that whatever legal or moral ob-
jections the representatives of the people had to the repu-
diation of the State's war debt, in their subjugated condi-
tion, they had no choice in the matter.
The convention incorporated in the constitution of
the State the following clause, which explains itself, upon
the subject of
The Abolition of Slavery.
" 20. The Government of the United States having, as a war measure,
proclaimed all slaves held or owned in this State, emancipated from slavery,
and having carried that proclamation into full practical effect, there shall
hencefortli be, within the State of Georgia, neither slavery nor involuntary
servitude, save as a punishment for crime, after legal conviction thereof;
Provided, this acquiescence in the action of the Govarnment of the United
States is not intended to operate as a relinquishment, waiver, or estoppel
of such claim for compensation of loss sustained by reason of the emancipa-
tion of his slaves, as any citizen of Georgia may hereafter make upon the
justice and magnanimity of that Government."
At the time this constitution was framed, with the
above clause in it, the idea of African slavery in this
country was a thing of the past. The freedom of the
black race had been proclaimed by the military author-
ity on the surrender of the Confederate armies, and the
occupation of the country by Federal officers, supported
by Federal troops and guards ; and for a period of five
or six months all the slaves of the State had been in a
EECONSTRUCTION OF GEOEGIA. 415
state of actual freedom. No slave-owner pretended to
exercise or claim any authority over his former slaves,
except such as employer had over employee. It is a
noteworthy fact that in very many cases the freed
negroes did not feel satisfied to remain, for wages, ^ylth.
their former masters ; but, as an act of freedom, they
seemed to prefer to contract with and hire themselves to
other persons than their former owners, and to transfer
the lifelong allegiance, subservience, obedience, and con-
fidence to and in their old masters, to Federal officers
and agents ; which allegiance and confidence were neces-
sarily of short duration.
At an election under the provisions of this con.stitution
Hon. Charles J. Jenkins was elected governor without
opposition, and a Legislature chosen, which assembled on
the 4th of December, at Milledgeville, under the auspices
of Provisional Governor Johnson. This legislative body
was composed, like the convention had been, of the good
and true men of the State, who were the representatives
of the white race.
The retiring provisional Governor in his message sub-
mitted the 13th Constitutional Amendment formally pro-
hibiting slavery then already abolished by military power,
and later by the State Constitutional Convention elected
by only white voters. The General Assembly ratified
the Amendment.
The provisional Governor continued to exercise the
duties of governor for several days, notwithstanding,
mider his authority and direction, the people had elected
a governor, members of the Legislature, and representa-
tives in Congress.
On the 12th of December the provisional Governor
made to the Legislature the following communication,
416 RECONSTRUCTION OF GEORGIA.
which is here recorded, as a relic of those extraordinary
times :
"EXECUTIVE OFFICE,)
MiLLEDGEViLi.E, Ga., Dec. 12, 13U5. I
" Gentlemen of the Senate and House of Representatives :
" I received this morning a telegram from His Excellency, tbe President
of the United States, a copy of which is herewith transmitted.
''J. Johnson,
" Governor."
[copy telegram.]
" WASHINGTOX, D. C, )
December 11, 1865. |
"J. JOHXSOX, Provisional Governor:
" The Governor elect will be inaugurated, which will not interfere with you
as Provisional Governor. You will receive instructions in a few days in
regard to being relieved as Provisional Governor.
" Why can't you be elected as Senator? I would issue no commissions for
members of Congress. Leave that for the incoming Governor.
" We are under riiany obligations to you for the noble, efficient and patriotic
manner in which you have discharged the duties of Provisional Governor,
and will be sustained by the Government.
(Signed) "Andrew Johnson,
" President U. S."
On the 14th of December Mr. Jenkins was inaugu-
rated, and entered on the duties of his office with the full
confidence of the people of all the former political par-
ties, now united in a common purpose of political re-
union and restoration, and the recuperation of the State
and people from the waste and desolation of war. His
inaugural address is characteristic of the great good man,
who had opposed secession, and, in fidelity to his State
and section, yielded, like many others, a heart}^ co-opera-
tion in the now lost cause of Southern independence. It
contained a thorough and truthful presentation of the
situation of this State, and of her relations to the Gov-
ernment and her constitutional obligations, exerting
RECONSTRUCTION OF GEORGIA. 417
everywhere a powerful iiiQuence upon the minds of the
Southern people.
This General Assembly elected Hon. Alexander H.
Stephens, late vice-president of the Confederate States,
and Hon. Herschel V. Johnson, late Confederate States
senator, as United States senators for Georgia. But the
senators, like the representatives elected by the people,
failed to obtain seats in Congress.
In consequence of ill-natured as well as unfounded
criticisms and rumors of speculation, peculation, fraud,
and mismanagement of the State's finances and the
public property and assets during the war, the Constitu-
tional Convention of the State, assembled under the
authority of James Johnson, provisional governor of
Georgia, on the 25th of October, 1865, recommended
him to appoint a special committee to make a "thorough
examination and investigation of the financial operations
of the State, from 1st January, 1S61, to that time, and re-
port the result of such investigation to the Legislature."
That committee was composed of Hon. Thos. P. Saffold,
Hon. Chas. S. Jordan, Jr., and Hon. 0. H. Lochrane, who
made their report February 22, 1866, to Gov. Jenkins
— who had been elected and installed — and to the Legis-
lature, embodying all the evidence elicited in three
months of patient and persistent effort to bring to light
everything that had been pointed to or suggested as a
foundation for the matters in hand.
The committee published notice of their session in all
the journals of the State, inviting all persons to come
forward and give evidence who knew anything to support
the charu^es or insinuations, and sent for and examined all
the persons in reach w^ho had been referred to for the
verification of the suspicions. The committee say : —
27
418 RECONSTEUCTIOX OF GEORGIA.
" We have invited every one who knew anything
that would throw light upon the investigation, to come
and tell it ; written letters to individuals who were said
to be in possession of facts ; sifted testimony, and exam-
ined the books, accounts, and vouchers of public agents
and officials, as well as their private affairs, — and feel
assured an examination of evidence on file in the execu-
tive office and the exhibits hereto attached will fully
sustain the conclusi(ms at which we have arrived."
A tabular statement annexed accounts for every bale
of cotton purchased, and shows what went with it.
The committee say : —
"Our conclusion is, after the most rigid scrutiny into
the public and private affairs of these officers, from Gov-
ernor Brown down, that no one of these rumors has been
sustained by the slightest proof. Instead of fortunes
having been made by them, we have found them gener-
ally poorer than when they went into office.
" In relation to the financial operations of the commis-
sary-general, Col. Jared I. Whitaker, we report, after
examining his statements as to his acts, official and pri-
vate, we found his report to the Legislature heretofore
made to be strictly accurate. He accounts for every
dollar received by him; and by his final report attached,
marked A and B, exhibits a fidelity and accuracy which
met our commendation. The fullest investigation ren-
ders it just to him, as he has been assailed, to say that
w^e feel confident no man could have been selected who
would have discharged the trusts of his office more ably
and faithfully.
" In the examination of books and vouchers of the
quartermaster-general. Col. Ira R. Foster, we found that
he had fully accounted for the moneys received by him ;
RECONSTRUCTION OF GEOEGIA. 419
that his duties were performed with great zeal and in-
dustry ; and his report up to date hereto attached,
marked C, exhibits the accuracy with which his accounts
with the State were kept."
Public criticisms were freely indulged to the effect that
the Governor had been a partner with E. Waitzfelder & Co.
in blockade running, and in the Milledgeville Manufact-
uring Company, and had used public funds in private
speculations. Upon these and similar groundless charges
the committee subjected him to a rigid examination.
His answer as then recorded and published, and to which,
after a period of fourteen years and through the mutations
of parties and the heat of antagonism, no one has ever
published or otherwise uttered a contradiction, states: —
That he was never a public or private partner of the
firm of E. Waitzfelder & Co. ; that he did not now own
and never did at any time own a dollar of the stock of
the Milledgeville Manufacturing Co. ; that he had used no
funds belonging to the State in his private transactions,
and that he knew of no such use of the State funds by
any officer of the State ; that he had purchased the two
plantations which he owned in southwest Georgia and
paid for them in Confederate money when the deprecia-
tion was very great upon it ; that the Confederate notes
he g;ave for them cost him but a few thousand dollars in
gold assets ; that part of these assets he inherited in right
of his wife and children from the estate of his father-in-law
of which he was executor, and part he had in railroad
bonds when the war began ; that he invested in land be-
cause he thought it safest ; that a large portion of W'hat
he now owned was in land and his city property in At-
lanta.
As much had been said about the large fortune he
420 llECONSTKUCTIOX OF GEORGIA.
had made during the war, he would state that ho would
now take in gold, first deducting his indebtedness, ten
thousand dollars less for all he possessed when the
war ended than his estate, including assets in his hands
as executor, which belonged to him in right of his wife
and to his children, was worth the first year of the war.
In view of the official positions held bv the Governor
and his subordinates representing the integrity of the
State in her public administration, these matters are re-
garded of sufficient moment to be thus published, not
only as a vindication of the State and these men who
retired to pursue their avocations, but to give full oppor-
tunity to all who may cherish malice against any of them
to make such assaults against them Avhile in life as they
ever intend to make as to any such matters.
The period of reconstruction tested the firmness as
w^ell as judgment of men in position to control public
opinion and give direction to public action. Prior to the
war, in the face of aggression, insult, injury, and threatened
war and subjugation, Joseph E. Brown, Governor of thi§
State, favored most of the means proposed to arrest aggres-
sion, and in the last resort secession and its terrible con-
sequences of war as an alternative to submission and the
overthrow of the constitutional theory of republican
government. Governor Jenkins, a man of cool judgment
and large experience, then in private life, while he depre-
cated the injuries and loathed the spirit of Northern ag-
gressions, was steadily opposed to secession, and favored
the preservation of the Union.
Now, occupying the office of Governor by the unani-
mous suffrage of the white people of a great but con-
quered State, he was inflexibly opposed to the ratification
by the Legislature of the 14th Constitutional Amendment,
EECONSTRUCTION OF GEORGIA. 421
making all persons born or naturalized in the United
States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, citizens of
the United States and of the State in which they reside;
apportioning representatives among the States according
to numbers ; imposing disabilities as to holding office on
all who had held office and taken the oath to support the
Constitution of the United States and afterwards en-
gaged in the rebellion ; declaring the validity of the pub-
lic debt of the United States, and prohibiting the United
States or any State from assuming or paying any
debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or re-
bellion against the United States, or any claim for the
loss or emancipation of any slave, declaring all such debts,
obligations, and claims illegal and void ; and authorizing
Congress to enforce the provisions of the amendment by
appropriate legislation.
Analyzing this amendment in his message in his usual
alle and elegant style, he concludes as follows: —
"I ask you to consider, however, why it is that you are called upon to
vote upon its adoption, whilst your State had no voice in its preparation.
The Constitution secures to the States the one right as distinctly and as
positively as the other. Had your Representatives, and those of other States
similarly situated, been present, aiding in giving substance and form to it,
possibly it might have come before you a less odious thing. The policy
seems to have been, first to push it, without their participation, beyond the
stage of amendment, and then say to them, accept our bantling or take the
consequences. The omission of any material part of tlie process of amend-
ment makes the amendment itself unconslitulional, null, and void.
" Should the States especially to be affected by this amendment refuse
their assent to it, it cannot be adopted without excluding them from the
count atid placing its ratification upon the votes of three-fourths of the now
dominant States.
"It is said, however, that unless this concession be made, the now ex-
cluded States will be kept out of the halls of Congress indefinitely. AVere
the amendment presented with such a menace distinctly expressed, a higher
motive (if possible) than any hitherto suggested would prompt its rejection,
" At the termination of hostilities it was right and proper that the pre-
422 RECONSTliUCTIOX OF GEORGIA.
viously resisting States should, in the most unequivocal and formal manner,
abandon such resistance — should rescind all they had done in antiigcnism
to, and do whatever was necessary and proper to place themselves in consti-
tutional relation with, that Government. All this, we believe, Georgia has
done. Beyond this, in acting upon any proposed change in the fundamental
law, even in this critical juncture, my advice is that her legislators act with
the same intelligent judgment and the same unflinching firmness that they
would have exercised in the past, or would exercise in the future, when in
ftdl connection and unambiguous position. Any other rule of action may
involve sacrifices of interest and of principle which magnanimity would not
exact and self-respect could not make.
" To submit to injurious changes in the Constitution, when forced upon a
State, according to the forms prescribed for its amendment, would be one
thing; to participate in making them, under duress, against her sense of
right and justice, would be a very different thing. The difference, in prin-
ciple, is as broad as that whicli distinguishes martyrdom from suicide. Far
better calmly await a returning sense of justice, and a consequent reflux of
the tide now running strongly against us."
This message was a reflex of the judgment and feeling
of a very large majority at that time of the white people
of this State.
The subject underwent a critical examination by an
able joint committee of the Senate and House on the
state of the Republic, who made an exhaustive argu-
ment in reporting against the amendment, which was
rejected by an almost unanimous vote.
Then the difficulties, complications, and delays of re-
construction began to be seen and realized by the people,
who felt and believed they had a right to a voice in the
establishment of the terms and conditions of their resto-
ration to the Union ; and that the United States, in the
legislative, executive, and judicial departments, were
bound by all constitutional checks and prohibitions ; and
that the people of the conquered States were by the
terms of the surrender reinvested with all the rights,
privileges, and immunities to which, as citizens of the
State and of the United States, they were entitled before
EECONSTRUCTIOX OF GEORGIA. 423
secession, war, and subjugation took place. This doctrine
was in accordance with the public sense of justice and
right, in harmony with public passion and pride in having
surrendered to the Government, and given up slaves,
repudiated their war debt, and unconditionally acknowl-
edged allegiance to the Union. In their subjugated
state, mortified by defeat, exasperated by the exercise of
military power in lieu of civil government, they were
ready to heed the advice and counsel of the statesmen
and the leading news and political journals, which fixed
limits and bounds to the exercise of power, and which
sousrht to enforce the ii;uaranties of civil oro-anic law.
The intelligent people of the conquered South viewed
themselves from a different standpoint and measured
their rights by a different standard — from the standpoint
and standard of the leadinu; minds of the Government
whose dominion and power had been re-asserted over
them. The people here regarded the restoration of Fed-
eral power, and the submission and obedience and loyalty
of the States lately at war with the Government, as the
full and complete consummation of all the objects and
aims of the war ; and considered that the Government
shoidd demand no more, and that the constitutional
rights of the States and people of the South should be
regarded and protected as a matter of right on their
part, and of duty on the part of the Government. They
were not prepared in judgment or sentiment to realize
the wisdom or the policy, on the part of the United
States, in changing the organic law of the Union so as
to invest the liberated black race with full legal, political,
and civil rights and immunities as a sequence of emanci-
pation, and in the enactment of laws to enforce those
alleged rights. And whosoever advised in accordance
424 KECONSTKUCTION OF GEORGIA.
with the well-defined public opinion and sentiment had
the ear and the approval of the people ; and, as a natural
sequence, whosoever advised the contrary had the dis-
favor and negative of the great majority of people, and
if he were a Southern man he incurred more or less of
public odium and denunciation.
Most of the old leaders of parties in this State, whether
they had originally favored secession or opposed it as a
remedy for acknowledged wrongs, and the men of the
State who had become prominent in the civil department,
and those whom military career had made prominent and
influential, w^ere open in opposition to the proposed
organic changes in the government, and to accepting
voluntarily the new order of things so far as were neces-
sarilv the results of these chans-es.
Some who had opposed secession, such as Governor
Jenkins, Plerschel V. Johnson, Mr. Benj. H. Hill, and Mr.
Stephens, sympathized in this prevailing sentiment and
openly avowed their opposition, and cordially co-operated
in this opposition with General Toombs, General Cobb,
and most of the old and new leaders of the State.
On the contrary, a few who had opposed secession
favored accepting the terms of reunion and reconstruction
offered by the General Government. And a few who had
favored the policy, and advocated the principles and
opinions that led to secession, advocated prompt separa-
tion and the united effort to establish Southern independ-
ence, and used all their powers and energies to maintain
the military and civil authority of the Confederate Gov-
ernment, now that the cause had finally and hopelessly
failed, — the new Confederacy being effectually over-
thrown, its forces disarmed and scattered, and the power
and authority of the United States fully established over
EECOXSTRUCTION OF GEORGIA. 425
and recognized and obeyed by the whole Southern people
who had been at war with the Federal Government, and
all fully recognizing themselves as a conquered people, —
as a matter not of right and justice abstractly considered,
or as a voluntary choice, but of wisdom and prudence,
and as the speediest and safest method of securing peace
to the people and protection to life, liberty, property,
and to the civil and leoral rio-hts and amenities of the
people in their diversified and numerous forms and rela-
tions, favored the prompt and unconditional acceptance
of all the positive and imperative terms dictated by the
conquering power. The proposed amendments and their
legal and logical sequences, which the conquered States
had no power to resist, were among those terms, and, for
the reasons stated, their ratification by the State was
openly urged upon the people.
Conspicuous and prominent among this few was the
displaced governor of Georgia, Joseph E. Browm, upon
wdiose head the vials of Avrath from his former foes and
friends, with only a few exceptions, and from almost the
whole political press of the South, were poured out with
relentless fury.
His star had been of the first magnitude in the political
firmament, respected for its brilliancy and power even by
the political foes who did not profess to walk by its light.
But now, from thousands of lips, and the teeming columns
of the conquered, resentful, and still rebellious press, the
tidings and accusations w^ere sent forth, were echoed and
reverberated from hill to dale, and from mountain to sea-
board, that " Joe Brown," to save his own neck from the
hangman's halter for his alleged treason in resisting Fed-
eral authority and seizing the arsenal and forts prior to
secession and w^hile Georgia acknowledged allegiance to
426 EECONSTKUCTIOX OF GEORGIA.
the Union, and to save his own property from confiscation,
had turned his back upon his own country, betrayed the
people that had honored and raised him to influence and
official power, whom he had aided in leading into seces-
sion, war, and to its direful and disastrous consequences;
and now, to save himself and protect his own accumula-
tions, he had joined our enemies and made common cause
with them, in perfecting and completing our humiliation
and dislionor.
It is necessary to have lived in those times to realize
the magic power and widespread influence of such pas-
sionate and unfounded clamor, and their effect upon the
popular mind and heart, and the accumulated weight of
public odium that gathered around the name and charac-
ter of Georgia's formerly honored and idolized chief. His
name, so potent and magical up to this terrible test of his
fidelity to his own accusing people, became a synonym of
perfidy, treachery, and selfishness, and was everywhere
cast out as evil ; in many circles the public cruelty ex-
tended to social proscription.
But, true to an inherited and cultivated firmness and
to a higher and broader comprehension of the situation
of the Southern States in their subjugated condition than
the passions of the times allowed to most of our late lead-
ers, he withstood it all with composure, and determined
to abide the judgment of later times, while through the
press, in private circles and addresses, he made public his
convictions of what was wisest and safest for the people,
and vainly urged his advice upon them.
A critical examination lately made of the published let-
ters and addresses of the then deposed and despised pop-
ular leader furnishes the authority to state his precise
position. He regarded the cherished Democratic and Jef-
RECOXSTRUCTIOxX OF GEORGIA. 427
fersonhm doctrine of State rights and State sovereignty,
and the con.sequent asserted right of secession of States
for causes to be judged of by their people, as completely
overthrown; that the disputed right of coercion and sub-
jugation claimed by the United States government over
revolting and seceding States held by that government
to be in rebellion was fully established and maintained by
military power, then fully and effectually asserted over
this State ; that the State was without power, and hope-
less as to all means of enforcing a negative, or dictating
terms of restoration to and reunion with the Lhiited States
from which we had separated.
Having made war for four years, when we had an or-
ganized Confederate government, and governments in all
the States composing the Confederacy, when they had the
means to carry it on ; and having failed, the Confederate
government being completely overthrown, its armies all
disbanded, and the disarmed citizen soldiers that composed
them all having returned to their homes ; and the general
government having proclaimed that the State was without
civil government, and substituted for the time being the
authority of the military over the people, — he believed,
and so advised, that it was the duty of the people to ac-
cept, voluntarily, the terms which he avowed would be en-
forced as conditions precedent to the restoration of civil
State government, and re-admission as a State in the Fed-
eral Union.
He also protested as ardently, in the presence of the
military and in the face of Republican domination, against
all proposals to go beyond the actual requirements of the
conquering power, as made known through the acts of
Congress and official orders and proclamations. He ve-
hemently opposed the State taking any voluntary step
428 KECOXSTRUCTIOX OF GEORGIA.
calculated to degrade or humiliate the white population,
not actually dictated and required by the government
whose authority we had all sworn in the oaths of amnesty
to obey.
These are the opinions, and such were the counsel and
advice of the ex-Governor, that brought him face to face
with his own people and former constituents, and invoked
their hostility and open denunciations upon him.
In October, 1879, in consequence of assaults made on
the floor of the Legislature upon the character and con-
duct of Governor Brown in those days, — and which were
also repeated through the press, — he was called out to
vindicate himself. And as pertinent to the matters and
subject now before us, the author quotes here his own
language to the public. Referring to the days of 1868,
he savs : —
" That was a period of unprecedented bitterness, madness, and vitupei'a-
tion. It was just after the war, at a time when the people of the State felt
they had not only lost all, but that the terms dictated by the conqueror were
harsh and rigorous. Prominent politicians who were disqualified to bold
office under the reconstruction legislation of Congress, and under the four-
teenth amendment which we were required to adopt, were very bitter and
denunciatory, and they fired the passions and worst feelings of the people
up to a high point.
" It was easy then to float with the current. My opinion was, however,
that it was the time of all others, when patriots and good citizens should
meet the issue calmly and coolly, dismiss passion, and be controlled entirely
by the dictates of tlieir judgment. Taking this view of the situation, and
feeling that I owed the people of Georgia a debt of gratitude that I could
never pay, for the honors and confidence they had bestowed upon me, I
looked carefully into the situation, and whilst every prompting of my nature
and of my passions was in the direction of the popular current, my judgment
told me it was bad policy and would terminate disastrously to pursue that
course.
" I was fully convinced that further resistance to the will of the conqueror
would be worse than folly. I knew the Northern mind was inflamed against
us, and that the party which had favored the war from the commencement
and had come out of it triumphant was obliged for years to control popular
EECONSTRUCTION OF GEOEGIA. 429
sentiment there. I was, therefore, satisfied the best thing we could do was
to agree with the adversary quickly, to take tlie first terms they off"ered us,
and close with them and get our representatives back into Congress at the
earliest date possible, and our State again recognized as a member of the
family of States of the Union. I was satisfied if we made no resistance to
the right of the negroes to vote, and made no issue with them upon that
subject, we could retain their confidence and carry a majority of them wiih
us, in spite of all the influence of all the carpet-baggers that could come among
them. But I was equally well satisfied, if we made war upon the acts of
Congress which gave them the right to vote, it would be a war in which we
would ultimately be vanquished ; and the very fact that we made tbe issue
would put them under the control of the carpet-baggers who came among
us, and who represented themselves to the colored people as being their
friends sent here to see that these rights were secured.
" I also predicted at the time, in my public speeches which are now of
i-ecord, that the time would come in less than fifteen years, when the New
England States would regret that they had given suffrage to the negio ; and
when the Southern people, on account of the power which the negro vote
gave us in Congress, would resist any effort to take from tiie colored people
the suffrage already given them. Under the lith Amendment, if the State
were to permit none of tlie colored race to vote, she could count none of
them in her representative population. The Southern States, therefore, have
some thirty members of Congress and thirty votes in the electoral college
which they w^ould not have if they had denied to the colored race the right
to vote. The Northern radicals saw this in the results of the late presiden-
tial election, and many of them have since cried out against unqualified
negro suffrage. What Southern man would now yield that right, thereby
losing tlie power which we have in Congress and in the electoral college, and
which we would not have if the race were disfranchised?
" But this is not all. At the time I took position for a,cquiescence in the
reconstruction acts, no 15th Amendment had been put upon us, as part of
the terms of re-admission into Congress; nor was it done until a number of
the States of the South had rejected the 14th Amendment. I predicted at
the outset, if we did not accept the terms then offered to us, harder terms
would be imposed, and we would be compelled to accept them. After we
had rejected the lith Amendment, the fifteenth, which guaranteed the right
of the negro to vote, was proposed and mude part of the terms; and we were
informed we would not be re-admitted till we complied with this additional
requirement. And we had to comply before we were re-adraitted.
"What has been the result? Those gentlemen in the South who were
then the leaders of popular sentiment, and who opposed the reconstruction
measures to the bitter end, until they had been agreed to by the Soutliern
States, have since become prominent in Federal politics ; and, notwithstand-
ing their denunciations of the llth and 15th amendments, and their predic-
430 RECONSTRUCTION OF GEORGIA
tions that tliev would never be enforced, thev have since that time again and
agait) sworn to support the Constitution with these amendments incorpo-
rated in it. And tlie national Democratic convention which met at St. Louis
incori)orated a plank into its platform declaring its devotion to the Consti-
tution with these amendments.
" As my enemies, tlirough the agency of their instrument, have tliought
proper to wake up the old issue, and again call in question the propriety and
wisdom of my conduct in the course I took upon reconstruction, I think it
not iuiprofier that I should call to mind these facts, and ask the people, who
gave the wiser advice on that occasion. Was I right wlien I told the people
we would be obliged to submit, to these terms? What advantage did South
Carolina, Louisiana, and Florida, whose people refused to go to ths polls, or
have anything to do with the conventions that formed their constitution
under the reconstruction acts, gain by the hands-off policy? They were
advised by their leaders to touch not, taste not, handle not the unclean thing,
to have nothing to do with it, but to give the matter up into the hands of
the negroes, carpet-baggers, and scalawags. The people followed the advice
of their leaders, and the governments of those States were put mto the hands
of the clashes above mentioned. They formed the constitution to suit them-
selves; and the world knows the result.
"On the other hand, the white people of Georgia were divided upon this
question. Some thirty or forty thousand of them who agreed with me, think-
ing it better to have a hand in making the constitution they were to live
iiuder, went to the polls and elected some of our best and ablest men, who
were not ineligible to represent them in the convention. The result was, we
got a constitution which soon placed the State under the permanent control
of the white race, where we have not had any inconvenience from the posi-
tion the negroes have occupied in the jury box, — in a word, a constitution
under which the intelligence and virtue of the State soon asserted their
supremacy; and our leading position is not only recognized but envied by
the Southern sisterhood of St ites. But for the course of the constituency I
have just mentioned, and of the self-sacrificing heroic men who went into
the convention, and who watched around it, with the curses of a large pro-
portion of the white people against them, who had the nerve to breast the
storm and do right, we would have been in as deplorable a condition as our
three Southern sisters above mentioned. I leave it therefore for the honest,
fair-minded men of this generation, and for impartial history in the future,
to say whether the course T took and the advice I gave during that great
struggle was the wisest and best that the circumstances permitted. 1 am
willing to stand or fall by the record; and my enemies who have provoked
this assault are welcome to make the most of it.
" Immediately after the reconstruction acts had passed, if the whole South
had accepted the situation and supported General Grant for President in
18G3, we would have been promptly re-admitted to Congress, our State gov-
EECONSTRUCTION OF GEORGIA. 431
ernments would have been left in our own hands, political disabilities would
have been removed, and we should have had no carpet-bag rule. This would
have thrown together in the Republican party, as the result of the war, ele-
ments not congenial on questions of banks, currency, tariffs, etc , and before
this time a split would naturally have taken place on those issues. And as
there would have been no bloody shirt waved, large numbers of Northern
men, who now act with the Republican party, who were oiigiually War
Democrats, would naturally have drifted back to their old position, which
has been prevented by the position of the South on the reconstruction issues.
"Entertaining these views, I did not support the Seymour movement on
the insane platform of 1868. But I then voted for General Grant as a
measure of policy, as the Democratic party did for Greeley in 1872. The
difficulty was, however, that the party did not adopt the proper line of policy
by giving their support to a Republican till four years after the opportunity
had passed. That which would have been wise and judicious in 1868, and
would have secured our immediate return to our proper position in Congress,
was of no benefit in 1872, because the times had changed and the opportu-
nity was gone. The mischief had already been done. Had the whole South
moved on that line in 1868, the result would have been that the Democracy,
designated by their old name or by some other watchword, would before
this time have been in complete control of the government."
In the numerous published speeches and letters advo-
cating the acceptance bv Georgia of the reconstruction
proposed and at last enforced by Congress, and the
advice given the Republicans in the State, his address to
the Constitutional Convention, and his addresses advo-
cating the adoption of the Constitution after it had been
framed and submitted to the people, and in advocating
the election of General Grant for the presidency, — the
spirit, the opinions, and advice indicated in the foregoing
extract abound. And, as stated, the hated and denounced
ex-Governor, while he advocated going the length de-
manded by the Government, protested continually against
going on6 step beyond it.
Congress promptly proceeded with the work of recon-
struction. The act of March 2, 1867, declared that no
legal State governments, or adequate protection to life
432 EECONSTRUCTION OF GEORGIA.
or property, existed in the States of Virginia, North
Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama,
Florida, Texas, and Arkansas; divided them into military
districts ; authorized the President to assign a military
commander to each district, and to detail a sufficient
military force to protect all persons in their rights of
person and property, to suppress insurrection, disorder,
and violence, and to punish or cause to be punished all
disturbers of the peace and criminals, giving the com-
manders the discretion to allow the local tribunals to try
offenders, or organize a military commission to try them.
The law also provided that when the people of any of
those States should form a constitution in conformity in
all respects to the Constitution of the United States,
framed by a convention of delegates elected by the m;de
citizens thereof twenty-one years of age, without distinc-
tion of race, color, or previous condition of servitude,
except those disfranchised for participation in the Eebel-
lion, or for felony at common law, — the constitution of
the State so formed to provide that the elective franchise
should be enjoyed by all such persons as are authorized
by the act to vote for delegates, and to be submitted
to, examined, and approved by Congress, — and when a
legislature elected under such constitution should ratify
the 14th Amendment, and that Amendment become a
part of the Constitution of the United States, then that
State should be entitled to representation in Congress.
The law declared all civil law provisional only in those
States until they should comply with its requirements.
Governor Jenkins was by military order of Major-Gen-
eral John Pope removed from office, and Brig-General
Ruger of the United States army placed in power. Gen.
Pope himself was afterward succeeded by Major-General
RECONSTRUCTION OF GEORGIA. 433
Meade, and he by Major-General Terry, of the United
States army, in the command of Georgia.
The States referred to in the act failing to take steps to
hold the convention and to comply with its terms, Con-
gress proceeded with the work of reconstruction. A sup-
plemental bill was passed providing for the election of
delegates to conventions, for the purposes indicated, under
the direction and authority of the military commanders in
charge ; providing rigid rules under oath for registration,
and excluding all as voters who by the provisions of the
proposed 14tli Amendment were proscribed from holding
office. The freed blacks without exception, except felony
at common law, were enfranchised, as were the white peo-
ple who were voters under existing laws, except as stated.
This proscription debarred a very large number, em-
bracing most of the leading and prominent men of the
State, from the right to register and vote in the election
for or against convention, and for delegates to represent
them, — they having held offices before the war, and
taken the usual oath to support the Constitution of the
United States, and afterward engaged in the Rebellion,
as the war for Confederate independence was denomi-
nated by law and in all official public orders.
The colored people with great unanimity and enthu-
siasm registered, and crowded to the voting places at the
elections. The question as to the assembling of the con-
vention was made to depend on the votes of those enti-
tled when voting for delegates. In case a majority were
indorsed for a convention, then the military commander
was required to assemble the body ; but in case there
was not a majority of those voting on that question
indorsed for convention, then it was not to be held, and
the military authority over the State was to continue.
2H
434 RECONSTRUCTION OF GEORGIA.
The registration was conducted by officers appointed
under the acts for the reconstruction — many of them
negroes. There were 95/214 white voters and 93,457
colored voters registered ; total 188,671.
At the election, 95,772 votes were cast for convention,
3,905 against holding a convention, and 5,406 votes for
delegates which were blank as to the question for holding
the convention. The press of that day abounded with
charges of frauds in the registration and injustice on the
part of the officers in charge of it, and with charges of
fraud in the count of votes. But this is the official result
as announced, and upon which the convention was as-
sembled by the military authority in command of the
State.
The senatorial districts of the State — forty-four in num-
ber— were adopted as election districts, and one hundred
and sixty-nine delegates apportioned and chosen from
them, by an election appointed and held for three days
only at county seats, and by managers appointed by the
military and registration authorities. Many of the man-
agers were negroes ; and a large proportion of the dele-
gates elected to the convention to frame the new consti-
tution for the State and adopt the amendment to the
Federal Constitution were negroes Avho had never before
voted, and very many of them entirely illiterate.
In this election, held in October, for and against hold-
ing a convention to assemble on the 9th of December,
1867, thus organized and submitted to the registered
voters of the State, the negroes voted with great una-
nimity and enthusiasm ; and also for delegates favoring
reconstruction to represent them. The white voters in
many election districts stood aloof, and refused to partici-
pate in the election for convention or for delegates. They
PvECONSTEUCTION OF GEORGIA. 435
refused to take part in the act of calling a convention,
and of appointing by ballot delegates for the purposes
indicated. Conducive to this non-action of the white
people there had been, between the time of the passage
and publication of the reconstruction acts of Congress
requiring this convention, and the ratification of the 14th
Amendment, a vast amount of able and some acrimonious
discussion of the matters by the press and political
leaders of the t^tate.
The people had begun to revive their hopes and to
regain their eneigies, and ply their activity and industry.
They accepted the action of the Legislature rejecting the
l4th Amendment with great unanimity, and seemed to
reo-ard the matter as settled. The act of Cono-ress of
March, 18G7, looking to this new reconstruction of the
State, startled the hopeful people and aroused their re-
sentment to the General Government, under the general
sense of wrong, and of outrage perpetrated by the radical
Congress. Such was the public opinion, and the gener-
ally expressed sentiment of the press representing the
people, at that time.
The people thus summoned suddenlj^ to reconstruct
themselves and their own government, to conform to
ideas and sentiments above all the most repulsive to
them, were ready to follow the lead of any man who
counselled them in accordance with their feelino;s and
sentiments. In the absence of any leader they were
despondent, dispirited, and depressed in view of the ter-
rible and trying ordeal that was then required by their
conquerors.
At this period, most of the former old leaders who sur-
vived the struggle were hopeless ; many of them, having
lost their worldly estates, were depressed by poverty ;
436 - RECONSTRUCTION OF GEORGIA.
many of them feared the ultimate consequences of having
been engaged in a war now held to be a rebellion by a
government apparently exasperated and incensed against
them. It was a sore and severe trial to many who had
not quailed before the guns that finally had subdued our
section.
The press seemed to halt and hesitate, the leaders to
whom the people looked were silent ; but few except
Governor Brown spoke, and he was advising them con-
trary to every instinct, impulse, and passion of their nat-
ure, and in opposition to their uninformed judgment under
the new order of things.
At this juncture Benjamin H. Hill, — who had been
before the war a formidable and powerful foe to the
Democracy and had opposed secession, and had held the
ofhce of senator in the Confederate Congress, had carried
his opposition to Governor Brown through the war, had be-
come a leading spirit and light in the civil government
of the Confederacy, and the confidant and adviser of Pres-
ident Davis, — with a boldness that challenged almost uni-
versal applause, opened through the press his powerful
criticisms on the government and party in power, the
wrongs as alleged of the proposed reconstruction, and
the order of things that would result from their adoption
by the people, entitled "Notes on the Situation," which
had so powerful an effect on the people then, and have
been so often referred to since, as to have made them
historic, and their object and purport are necessarily a
part of our State history. In the 15th of these papers
he sums them up as follows : —
^' The points which I sought by the * notes ' to establish
were, among others, —
"That the military bills were contrary to the Constitu-
EECONSTRUCTION OF GEOEGIA. 437
«
tion and destructive of all the principles and guaranties
of free government in America.
" 2. That they were contrary to every code of civilized
nations, and in inf\imous bad faith to the terms of the fight
and the conditions of surrender.
" 3. That the reasons urged to justify these meas-
ures— such as a desire to restore the Union, elevate the
black race, secure guaranties of future peace, etc., etc.,
were utterly untrue, inconsistent, and insidious — were
pretexts to cover the only real purpose, which was to
perpetuate the power of the radical party.
" 4. That the acceptance of the plan proposed by these
bills could only result in a permanent subversion of the
government in the degradation of the people in along and
bloody reign of anarchy, with social, civil and agrarian
wars, resulting, after unparalleled horrors, in despotism for
the whites of the United States, and in the extermination,
exclusion, or political re-enslavement of the African race.
" 5. The only remedy for these evils, both threatened and
existing, was a speedy return by the people of all sections
to the Constitution, and the vigorous enforcement of its
remedies against all its violators.
The elaborate and voluminous discussion of these views
with the passionate style of a great writer, and on the
stump, by him, one of the acknowledged orators of the
age, to a people whose minds and hearts were in unison
with his, had a most wonderful effect in unitino; and
solidifying public opinion in opposition to reconstruction
on the terms proposed.
These notes and Mr. Hill's speeches called out elaborate
and able reviews by Governor Brown, written in his
usual masterly style, setting forth and defending his own
opinions and assailing those of Mr. Hill.
438 RECONSTRUCTION^ OF GEORGIA.
Mr. ITill now had the popular ear and heart. The
people in the main shared his sentiments, and hastily
and enthusiastically accepted his conclusions, and en-
tered into his passions ; he had almost the unanimous
press to laud him and condemn his adversary in the dis-
cussion. The journals promptly publi.shed his articles
and praised him extravagantly, and the spirit and hopes
of the people were aroused and re-assured. A few only
of them printed, and nearly all condemned without meas-
ure, the reviews and criticisms of Governor Brown. But
few of them were charitable enough to spare his motives.
Other powerful influences were brought to bear upon
the public mind at this period. A committee of distin-
guished citizens of Atlanta called out the views of Ex-Gov-
ernor Johnson, whose letter, generally published over the
State, was a terribly scathing and withering analysis and
denunciation of the congressional bills and plan of recon-
struction ; other prominent and influential leaders joined
only in the opposition, and before the time for voting on
the call of a convention and the election of delegates ar-
rived the white people had become almost solid in
opposition to the proposed reconstruction.
The effect was to keep the white voters who had reg-
istered in many districts from participating in the election,
but not in the slightest degree to stay the progress of
reconstruction. The delegates were elected, the conven-
tion assembled and proceeded with the work of making
a new constitution, such as was required by the acts of
Conorress, and submittinsr it to the voters who had
been registered according to the requirements of the
reconstruction laws and oiders.
The sentiment of hostility to the proceedings was al-
most universal in most parts of the State. But even after
EECONSTRUCTION OF GEORGIA. 439
the election of the delegates to the convention, it was in
an unorganized state. The people had not participated
in the election, and had held themselves aloof from the
proceeding, under the advice of the popular leaders who i
had their confidence, and of the exasperated press of the
State. But they had no course of proceeding, no pro-
gramme of future action prescribed.
True to the passions, impulses, and prevailing opinions
and judgment of those leaders, a voluntary convention
of all who opposed the then proceedings — to recon-
struct the State under the congressional bills — was called
to meet in the city of Macon, to be composed of dele-
gates representing the counties of the State.
This convention, composed of two hundred and thirty-
five delegates, representing seventy counties, assembled
at Macon on the fifth of December, 1867. Hon. Benj.
H. Hill was chosen president. His opening and closing
addresses, and those of the speakers who took part in the
discussions, were of an exciting character, characterized
by ability and dignity, in harmony with the prevailing
sentiment and feeling of the people.
An able committee, composed of Geo. A. Mercer and
C. B. Richardson of the First Congressional District,
Philip Cook and T. M. Furlow of the Second, P. W. Al-
exander and C. H. C. Willingham of the Third, Thomas
Hardeman, Jr., and Daniel Hughes of the Fourth, David
E. Butler and E. H. Pottle of the Fifth, J. Graham and
W. W. McLester of the Sixth, Luther J. Glenn and J. A.
Stewart of the Seventh, was appointed. Hon. J. J.
Gresham of Bibb was made chairman of the committee.
The action of the committee, which by adoption be-
came the action of the convention, was more wise and
conservative than the speeches and the leading news-
440 EECONSTRUCTIOX OF GEORGIA.
paper enunciations of that period had been, but was ac-
cepted and approved generally by the constituency of the
convention.
They provided for a committee to publish an address
to the people, composed of Ilerschel V. Johnson, chair-
man, Absalom H. Chappell, Benjamin H. Hill, Warren
Akin and Theodore L. Guerry, which was written by the
chairman, in his powerful and masterly style, and was in
harmony with the resolutions of this convention, all of
w'hich were extensively published.
The preamble and resolutions, which express the con-
servative opinions and sentiments of opposition to recon-
struction then prevalent, are as follows : —
" We, the delegates of the people of Georgia, in convention assembled, rec-
ognizing our obligation to support the general government in all legal and
proper measures, and claiming from that government the due performance
of tlie reciprocal duty, to extend to us, in common with all the people of the
whole country, the protection guarantied by the Constitution of our fore-
fathers, do declare and affirm that manly protest against bad public policy
is the duty as well as the right of every American citizen; and this without
factitious opposition to government, or untimely interruption of public har-
mony. The season for honest discussion of principles, and for lawful oppo-
sition to existing abuses, and their growth, is ever present and pressing.
"Tlie Southern people are true to constitutional liberty, and ready to
acquiesce in any policy looking to the honor and good of the whole country,
and securing the rights of all classes of people.
" We regard the efforts of the present ruling power to change the funda-
mental institutions of the United States government, as false in principle,
impolitic in action, injurious in re=>ult, injurious to the South, and detri-
mental to the general government. Silence under wrong may be construed
as endorsement. Be it therefore
"Refiolved, 1st, That we recognize the duty to sustain law and order, and
support cheerfully all constitutional measures of the United States govern-
ment, and maintain the rights of all classes under enlightened and liberal
laws.
^^Resolved, 2d, That the people of Georgia accept in good faith the legiti-
mate results of the late war, and renew their expressions of allegiance to the
Union of the States, and reiterate their determination to maintain inviolate
the Constitution framed by our fathers.
KECONSTRUCTION OF GEORGIA. 441
"Resohe'l, 3^1, That we protest dispassionately, yet firmly, against what is
known as the Reconstruction Acts of Congress, and against the vintiictive
and partisan administration of those acts as wrong in principle, oppressive
in action, and ruinous to the States of the South, as well as hurtful to the
true welfare of every portion of our common country, and leading directly, if
not intentionally, to the permanent supremacy of the negro race, in all those
States, wiiere those laws are now being enforced,
"Resoloeil, 4th, That we protest in like spirit and manner against the policy
of the dominunt party in Congress, which seeks to inflict upon the States of
the South permanent bad government, as wrong, not only to all races in the
South, and to the people of all parts of the Union, but a crime against
civilization, which it is the duty of all right-minded men everywhere to
discountenance and condemn.
"Rexolver/, 5th, That we enter on record, in the name and behalf of the
people of this State, this, our solemn protest against the assembling of a
convention, which, we affirm, with evidence before us, has been ordered
under pretence of votes which were illegally authorized, forcibly procured,
fraudulently received, and falsely counted, as we believe. And in view of
the solemn responsibility of the issues involved, we do hereby declare that
we will forever hold the work of framing a constitution by such authority,
witli intent to be forced by military power on the free people of this ancient
Commonwealth, as a crime against our people, against the continuance of
free government, against the peace of society, against the purity of tlie bal-
lot-box, and against the dignity and character of representative institutions."
Notwithstanding this strong and decided enunciation
of alleged rights and wrongs, and the earnest protest of
their opponents, the reconstruction party in convention
proceeded with its work of framing a new organic law
for the State.
In the various constitutions that have been made, most
of the provisions of the old constitution in force before
the war have been retained ; some have been modified,
and others expunged, and provisions inserted to suit the
new order of things. This Constitution of 1868 made
some elementary and radical changes of organic law.
It enacted that, " The State of Georgia shall ever re-
main a member of the American Union ; the people
thereof are a part of the American nation. Every citizen
442 RECONSTEUCTION OF GEORGIA.
thereof owes paramount allegiance to the Constitution and
Government of the United States, and no law or ordi-
nance of this State, in contravention or subversion
thereof, shall ever have any binding force.
" That the social status of the citizen shall never be the
subject of legislation.
" There shall be no imprisonment for debt.
"Whipping as a punishment for crime is prohibited.
" There shall be within the State of Georgia, neither
slavery nor involuntary servitude, save as a punishment
for crime after legal conviction thereof.
" All persons born or naturalized in the United States,
and resident in this State, are hereby declared citizens of
this State," etc. And the right of suffrage is extended to
such as are male, and of suitable age and residence — and
not disqualified — by special provisions. Debts for the
sale or hire of slaves were abrogated. The Legislature
was required to provide a general system of education to
be free to all children of the State, tiie expense of wdiich
to be provided by taxation or otherwise. A homestead
of real estate and exemption of personal estate, to the value
of $2,000 of the former and $1,000 of the latter at gold
valuation, were provided, and the seat of the State gov-
ernment peremptorily removed from Milledgeville to
Atlanta.
The convention provided by ordinances for an election
by the persons already registered as voters, for the rati-
fication of the constitution framed, and at the same
time for the election of a governor, members of the Legis-
lature, civil officers of the State, and representatives in
Congress.
The opposition, composed of the old Democrats and
Whigs and conservative men, such as were assembled
RECONSTRUCTION OF GEORGIA. 443
and represented in the Macon convention of the preced-
ing December, now changed their policy and mode of
opposition from non-action and inactivity, to action and
industrious preparation to defeat the proposed (Constitu-
tion, and in many counties to elect men opposed to it to
represent them in the Legislature in the event of its be-
ing declared adopted ; to elect a Democratic governor
and, generally, the county officers over the State.
The Republican members of the convention chose, and
put in nomination, a member of that body from the
county of Richmond — Rufus B. Bullock. The Demo-
crats in convention nominated Augustus Reese of Morgan
county, a judge of the superior court, who had been re-
moved from office by the military commander of the
State — a man of great purity and integrity of character.
It transpired that he was subject to the disability
from holding office imposed by the proposed Fourteenth
Constitutional Amendment, and thereupon David Irwin of *
Cobb county, also a man of ability and integrity, command-
ing public confidence, was nominated. It also transpired,
that he, having held office and taken the constitutional oath
before the war, while not a soldier in the Confederate army,
had taken such part as disqualified him, and thereupon
the executive committee of the party selected a man
who had never held office before the war, young in years,
but eminently distinguished as a soldier and commander
in the Confederate army — Lieut.-General John B. Gordon.
His nomination was popular. And while there was but
limited confidence among the public men of the party
that he could be installed if elected, the people supported
him with enthusiasm, while voting for their county of-
ficers and the members of the Legislature, and in o^j vj.si-
tion to the proposed Constitution.
444 EECONSTRUCTION OF GEORGIA.
The canvass was an exciting one, through the press,
and b^^ public speeches from leading men, and in private
circles. The resentment against the method of holding
and conducting the election, and against the appointees of
the military to conduct it, was high and vehement. There
were open and frequent charges and complaints of fraud,
miscount, and illegal conduct on the part of the man-
agers— and in the consolidation of the vote. But there
was no power or authority to investigate and decide upon
them.
The Constitution was declared adopted, Mr. Bullock
proclaimed elected, and thereupon General Meade, the
officer in command of the military district, having suc-
ceeded Major-General Pope, assembled the Legislature,
and under military escort installed the members and
governor-elect, on the 4th of July, 1868.
The constitutional amendment was promptly ratified ;
and thereupon Congress provided for the admission and
representation of the State in Congress, and civil gov-
ernment WMS restored and military authority suspended
on the 21st July, 1868.
At the time the Legislature was assembled and installed,
and Gov. Bullock inaugurated by Maj.-Gen. Meade, com-
manding the military district, the National Republican
party had been in convention at Chicago, and nominated
Gen. U. S. Grant as candidate for the presidency to suc-
ceed Andrew Johnson. Mr. Johnson had been made
Vice-President of the Union because he was a Southern
Democrat of great intellect and force of character, be-
cause of his disloyalty to the State of Tennessee and to the
Confederacy, and his inflexible loyalty to the United
States. He had been made President just as the war
of opposing armies was drawing to a close, by the
RECONSTRUCTION OF GEORGIA. 445
assassination of Abraham Lincoln; President of the United
States. He had been from an early period after his in-
stalhition as President at issue and on terms of variance
and often of conflict in judgment with the party that had
placed him in power, as to the proper course of the gov-
ernment toward the Southern States and their recon-
struction and re-admission into the Union, and as to his
advised leniency towards the men regarded by the lead-
ino" men of the Republican party as rebels and criminals
and deserving of penalties instead of clemency. This
state of division between the conquering party having
the majority of both houses of Congress, and having lost
the executive by assassination, and the executive of the
Union who had acceded to the presidency, and who
evidently was not in sympathy with them as to the
proper course towards us, or as to the future of national
parties, had led to bad temper and mutual bad passions,
and culminated in a most powerfully conducted and in-
genious plan to impeach and remove the President, which
on final trial had barely failed. The President was virt-
ually impeached by the great and dominant Republican
party of the Union, and as strongly and triumphantly
vindicated by the deposed and defeated yet powerful
Democratic party of the United States, North and South.
We of the South, who had least to do with springing
or conducting the issues and disputes between President
Johnson and the party that elected him, were, consequen-
tially to his espousal of our cause and proffered protec-
tion, made to an extent the subjects of an animosity and
opposition, and consequent oppression that we otherwise
might have escaped, from the dominant party, the ene-
mies of the President. Our reconstruction was on hand
at this period, when the party, under whose advice and
>^
446 ' EECOXSTRUCTION OF GEORGIA.
official action the war had been made upon us, and
under whose administration and under whose auspices,
in the main, it had been prosecuted to a successful ter-
mination against us, had become fully aroused, and were
intent on pressing it to its logical and necessary final
sequences, and on reaping to themselves, as a ruling party,
the full fruits of their victory.
They had called to bear th.eir standard in the approach-
ing presidential contest the man they recognized among
their many leaders, who had become distinguished as the
great successful hero, representing the military glory and
the spirit of the national Union army as well as the ob-
jects and aims of the national party.
The Democratic party of the Union was then assem-
bling in the city of New York to bring forward a com-
petitor, and to set forth the principles, aims, and policy
of the government when restored to them by the pop-
ular vote.
Horatio Seymour, ex-governor of New York, who had
been identified with the national Democracy and opposed
in his principles and sympathies to the Republicans, was
nominated for the office of President ; and Francis P.
Blair, of Missouri, who had been a Democrat in earlier
life and joined the national Eepublicans before the war,
and who had been actively engaged in the war of subju-
gation and risen to the rank of Major-General in the
Union army, but who had, after the close of the war,
reunited, and become somewhat extreme in his public
utterances, was nominated for Vice-President
In his letter previously published to Col. James A.
Broadhead, he had openly assailed and denounced the
whole scheme of reconstruction in strong and unmeasured
terms. In this widely circulated letter he says : —
RECONSTRUCTION OF GEORGIA. 447
" The reconstruction policy of the Radicals will be complete before the
next election ; the States so long excluded will have been admitted, negro
suffrage established, and carpet-baggers installed in both branches of Con-
gress. There is no possibility of changing the political character of the
Senate, even if the Democrats should elect their President and a majority of
the popular branch of Congress. We cannot, therefore, undo the Radical
plan of reconstruction by Congressional action; the Senate will continue a
bar to its repeal. Must we submit to it ? How can it be overthrown ? It
can only be overthrown by the authority of the Executive, who is sworn to
maintain the Constitution, and who will fail to do his duty if he allows the
Constitution to perish, under a series of Congressional enactments which
are in palpable violation of its fundamental principles.
" If the President elected by the Democracy enforces or permits others to en-
force these reconstruction acts, the Radicals, by the accession of twenty spuri-
ous senators and fifty representatives, will control both branches of Congress,
and his administration will be as powerless as the present one of Mr. John-
son. There is but one way to restore the government and the Constitution,
and that is for the President-elect to declare these acts null and void, compel
the army to undo its usurpations at the South, disperse the carpet-bag State
governments, allow the white people to organize their own governments and
elect senators and representatives."
And after amplifying concluded with this : —
"I wish to stand before the convention upon this issue, but it is one which
embraces everything else that is of value in its large and comprehensive re-
sults. It is the one that includes all that is worth a contest, and without it,
there is nothing that gives dignity, honor, or value to the struggle."
The nomination of the 2:reat leader of the New York
Democracy — who had opposed the Republican organiza-
tion, its aims and purposes — for President, and the author
of their recently published " Letter by a Major-General
of the Union Armies," as Vice-President, on the Demo-
cratic side, to compete for the executive government,
against General U. S. Grant, the most popular general,
and Mr. Schuyler Colfax, a leading Republican, made
the issues that were well calculated to solidify the
Democratic Southern States for the Democratic nomi-
nees where there was not a majority of colored voters,
448 EECONSTRUCTION OF GEORGIA.
and to mass the people of the North, who had subjugated
us, in the support of the Repubhcan candidates.
The tendency of these nominations, in the open direc-
tion thus indicated, was greatly increased by the espousal
of the Democratic nominees and the platform of prin-
ciples adopted by the National Convention, by most of
the distinguished leaders of secession, and of the Confed-
erate government and Southern armies. , In this State,
as soon as the nomination of Seymour and Blair was
announced, General Howell Cobb, provisional president
of the Confederacy, General Toombs, Benj. H. Hill, and
others, entered the canvass as speakers, and were un-
measured in denunciation of the national Republicans,
the Congressional plan of reconstruction, the newly pro-
posed amendment to the Federal Constitution. They
exhausted their powers of invective upon the few leading
men of Georgia who adhered to the reconstruction policy
and supported General Grant.
The national Democrats in their platform of principles,
like the Republicans, avowed the purpose to maintain
the public debt of the United States, their adhesion to
the Federal Union, and demanded economy in public
administration. The Democrats demanded the restoration
of the conquered States to the Union, amnesty for polit-
ical offences, and the regulation of the elective franchise
in the States by their citizens ; arraigned the radical
party for oppression to the Southern States, and lor vio-
lating the pledges of the Government as to the objects
of the war — by which the people were led into it ; de-
clared the Jeffersonian theory of government, and that
the Democratic party of the South had gone into the war
to maintain that theory of government ; declared that
the radical party, instead of restoring the Union, had, so
EECOXSTRUCTION OF GEORGIA. 449
far as in its power, dissolved it, and subjected ten States,
in time of profound peace, to military despotism and
negro supremacy.
The national Republicans claimed the success of the
war, and the reconstruction policy of Congress, *' securing
equal civil and pohtical rights to all ; " and avowed it
the "• duty of the Government to sustain these institu-
tions, and to prevent the people of the Southern States
from being remitted to a state of anarchy."
The canvass made before the American people upon
the issues thus indicated, and under the lead of the men
mentioned, at that early period after hostilities, although
conducted with great ability, zeal, and warmth by the
leaders and press of both parties, necessarily and natu-
rally resulted in the united action of the majority of the
white voters of the South on Seymour and Blair, and of
a majority of the people of the North on Grant and Col-
fax, and in their election.
The next political and unofficial movement of the peo-
ple opposed to the reconstruction and. Republican party in
this State, was the assembling of the Democratic party in
convention in 1870 — composed of leading surviving mem-
bers of the old sqjtti-vi^r parties who had during the struggle
made common cause, and of the same kind of material,
actuated by like sentiments, feelings, passions, opinions
an^ j)rinciples as composed the December convention of
18G7 at Macon, and the Seymour supporters of 1868.
Judge Linton Stephens, w^ho died two years later, and after
bringing to bear in every practical method on public
opinion his masterly opposition to the reconstruction acts
and the constitutional amendments, was a delegate from
Hancock county, and as chairman of the business commit-
tee was the author of the platform of principles adopted.
29
450 EECOXSTRUCTION OF GEORGIA.
It has transpired since, that it was prepared on confer-
ence with Alexander H. Stephens, before going to the
convention. The declaratory resolutions are as follows :
1. That the Democratic party of the State of Georgia
stand upon the principles of the Democratic party of the
Union, bringing into special prominence, as applicable to
the present extraordinary condition of the country, the
unchangeable doctrine, that this is a union of States, and
of the indestructibility of States, and of their rights, and
of their equality wdth each other, as an indispensable
part of our political system.
2. That in the approaching State election the Demo-
cratic party cordially invite everybody to co-operate with
them in a zealous determination to change, as far as the
several elections to be held can do so, the present usurp-
ing and corrupt administration of the State government,
by placing in power men who are true to the principles
of constitutional government and to a faithful and eco-
nomical administration of public affairs.
The Republican administration of the State under Gov-
ernor Bullock, and the Legislature elected contempora-
neously with him, a majority of whose members were in
accord and sympathy with him, and the national Repub-
lican party, of which he was a zealous and active member,
had, by many causes combined, lost favor and support
from the people who placed them in power, and increased
and intensified the hatred and opposition of the Demo-
cratic people of the State. The way was prepared for a
change in administration. The resolution assailins; the
party in power was based on evidences of maladministra-
tion so numerous as to be beyond question or contro-
versy, by any fair and candid man, and was therefore in
full accord with the public temper. The resolution de-
RECONSTRUCTION OF GEORGIA. 451
daring federal relations ignored the subject of tlie new
amendments upon which the national Democratic party
had been defeated in 1868, and. presented common ground
on which all the people who were disposed to organize in
opposition to Republican rule in this State and in the
Union could stand and act together.
The result was the triumph of the party and the elec-
tion of a Democratic Legislature, a body decidedly hostile
in principle and sentiment to Governor Cullock, whose
term of office under the new constitution was four years,
and who, if he should remain and continue to hold his
office, would have to meet and confer with and be sub-
jected to the hostile investigations of an opposing Legis-
lature.
Pursuing the narrative of political parties beyond, in
the order of tiriie, the civil administration in the State,
we reach the final solution of differences between leaders
who had stood aloof and been in hostility to each other
from the time the reconstruction began 5 in the attitude
and position of national parties ; in the Presidential elec-
tion of 1872, when the Republican party renominated
General Grant, and the Democratic party, despairing of
success in electing a man of their own party, determined
upon the nomination of a man of the Republican party,
Horace Greeley of New York. He had been an open
enemy to the national Democracy from early life, had
been a Whig, and leading journalist of that party while
it had an organization ; had been an anti-slavery advo-
cate ; had early espoused the national Republican organi-
zation in opposition to the Democracy ; and had boldly
advocated the war of subjugation, and the sequences on
the races in the South after victory. He had favored all
the amendments of the Federal Constitution in addition
452 RECONSTRUCTION OF GEORGIA.
to the reconstruction acts of Congress, and maintained
the civil and political rights of the liberated negroes of
the South.
The Democratic party in the State elections north
had found it necessary to acquiesce in all these measures,
and stood in harmony with the Republicans as to the
binding force of the Constitution as amended, and the
laws for its enforcement. The Democratic party of
the South, in its hopeless condition of political antago-
nism to the organic law of the Union, which all public
officers were required under oath of office to support, had
drifted upon the same common ground with their North-
ern allies, ignoring the past offensive action and doctrines
of Mr. Greeley and his life-long opinions and theory of
the constitutional government, and agreeing with him on
the present issues and aims of the party ; regarding his
liberal views toward the South and to all sections of the
country, and appreciating his patriotism, sense of justice,
and large philanthropy ; and in the hope of drawing off
from the national Republican party a large and respect-
able element known as Liberal Republicans, and organ-
izing that element with the national Democratic party,
and thus gaining ascendency, he was nominated for the
office of President.
Alexander H.Stephens, and Linton Stephens, who died
at this juncture, with only a few other Democrats of the
State, bitterly and openly opposed the action of the party,
and the former continued the opposition and refused his
support to Mr. Greeley.
But the leaders and people generally had abated all
their active opposition to reconstruction, and to the
amendments as parts of the Federal Constitution and of
bindincr force, had abandoned all idea of restrictincr
EECONSTRUCTION OF GEORGIA. 453
suffrage on account of race or color, or withholding from
the freed negroes of the State any rights to which they
were entitled under the Constitution and laws in force.
They had an intensified opposition to the national Repub-
lican party; had been exasperated by its course, under
General Grant's administration, toward the South, and
toward the party while in power in the State under Gov-
ernor Bullock's administration. They ardently desired
to change the national Government from the control of
the Republican to that of the national Democratic party ;
but they despaired of hope in that grand result by an
attempt to elect a Democratic President. Such appeared
to be the decisive judgment of most of the leading minds
of the party north, and such was the action of State or-
ganizations north, as to then render the attempt nugatory
and hopeless. The next great aim indicated by the
Northern Democrats was to meet the overtures of the
more moderate wing of the Republicans, who sympathized
with them in suppressing the abuses of the ruling party, —
in the hands generally of extreme and severe men, — and
in the re-establishment of law and order and peace, and
protection to the people of the South, white and black,
and to the stability of State laws and tribunals. As a
choice, it was the object of intense desire to place that
class of men in power in lieu of those of whose exactions,
oppressions, and abuses they complained.
The consequence was that this State in its party or-
ganization glided smoothly into the nomination of Mr.
Greeley, the ratification of the platform and policy of the
national party that placed him in nomination, and, by her
delegates accredited to the national convention of the
party, actually participated in the nomination.
There had been, however, a point of radical difference
454 RECON"STRUCTIOX OF GEOEGIA.
of opinion and action among the native and original citi-
zens of the State, who had been at variance with the
Democrats and acted with the Republicans. Some of
them were radicalized in sentiment, feeling, and opinion,
hated the Democratic party and its leaders, and became
fully identified with the national party. They were few
in numbers, but acted in concert with the national party
in this State, composed mainly of negroes, and supported
General Grant for the second term.
A large portion of them regarded the organization for
the support of the Government in the reconstruction of
the State, her rehabiliment and restoration to the Union,
as having accomplished the object that had separated
them from their old party. They had lived to see the
grounds taken by them in 1867 — and maintained against
great opposition, and in the face of denunciation and
abuse, in 1868 — occupied openly by the national party
to which they had belonged, and by the leaders in official
position in the State, and by the men who shaped and
controlled the action of the Democratic party in this
State ; that the party now led by the men who had de-
nounced them by resolutions of the most unequivocal
character sustained their action in everything wdierein
they had differed. This wing of the reconstruction party
was led by a few of the best men of the old party, prom-
inent among them being ex-Governor Joseph E. Brown.
The sequence was etisy, logical, and natural. They
all came together and cordially united in the support of
Mr. Greeley, and secured his triumphant success in this
State, though of course he was defeated in the Union.
They have acted in harmony in State and National elec-
tions since that time, and the bitterness that existed be-
tween them has in great part passed away.
RECOXSTEUCTION OF GEORGIA. 455
Brief IIesume of Political Changes.
From 1850 to 1872, a period of only twenty-two years,
the changes of political parties were numerous, rapid, and
in many respects, marvellous. At and prior to the first
period named, the voters of the State, then composed only
of white men, as well as the public virtue, patriotism and
intelligence, were divided with great equality between the
national Democratic and Whig parties. An election with
a change of only a few hundred votes often had the effect
to shift the majority and predominance from one party to
the other in this State. The popularity of leaders or of
particular measures, or the want of it, was suf&cient to
effect a change of political power in the government.
This state of parties was a constant guard over the public
administration, and to a very large extent a protection
to the people against excesses and abuses of power and
prerogatives.
At this time, as we have seen, the division arose be-
tween the leaders and extended to the people, as to the
course this State should pursue on account of alleged and
admitted wrono;s of the Federal government in the anti*
slavery policy of the compromise measure of that year
enacted by Congress, known as the Omnibus Bill, ad-
mitting California as a State, with her alleged fraudu-
lently procured, anti-slavery constitution ; the suppression
of the slave trade in the District of Columbia, alleged to
be a violation of the Federal constitution ; the purchase,
at the price of $3,000,000, of territory of Texas, a slave
State, and annexing it to New Mexico, a then being or-
ganized territory ; the interdiction of slavery north of a
certain line in that territory and Utah, and the refusal to
provide for its establishment or protection south thereof;
456 EECONSTRUCTIOX OF GEORGIA.
arid the law providing for the return of fugitive slaves
from Northern States and Territories, to their owners.
This difference suspended both organized parties, and
produced in their stead two new parties, called the Union
and Southern Rights parties, which for a short time were
intensely opposed and bitter toward each other. The set-
tlement of the controversy by the action of a State con-
vention, and the acceptance thereof on the part of both,
dissolved these new parties and remitted most of the men
in them to their old alignments for the presidential con-
test of 1852, from which time forward until 1860, the
national Democratic party remained organized in the
State. But the overthrow of Fillmore and such other na-
tional men as were acceptable to the southern entire
Whig party, and the nomination of General Scott, who
was obnoxious to many of the most powerful leaders, as
a candidate of the party for President, precipitated a divi-
sion of the party, and caused the nomination of Webster
and Jenkins. The elements, however, came together un-
der the name of the Constitutional Union party in 1853,
in the support of Mr. Jenkins for governor. And again,
in 1855, with the loss of some members and leaders, and
some Democratic accessions in the support of Garrett An-
drews, the '"' Know Nothing " or American party candidate.
Under the name of ^' opposition party," after the defeat
of the American party, their organization, though in a
minoritj^ was kept up and active until after the presi-
dential election of 1860, which resulted in favor of Mr.
Lincoln.
In that contest the Democratic party had divided,
the larger wing supporting Breckenridge and Lane, the
smaller wing supporting Douglas and Johnson. The
opposition party, composed in the main of the old Whigs
EECONSTRUCTION OF GEORGIA. 457
who had been Know Nothings or Americans, supported
Bell and Everett, the national Whig nominees. The Re-
publican or radical party, supporting Mr. Lincoln, was
sectional in organization, and had no electoral ticket or
acknowledged supporters in the State. His election
caused an immediate suspension of all parties in the
State, and new alignments growing out of differences of
opinion as to the wisest and best course to be pursued.
A majority of old Democrats with a large minority of
the old opposition espoused the cause of secession. A
majority of the opposition with a large minority of old
Democrats — opposing separate State action, and advo-
catino; that whatsoever action should be taken should be
by co-operation of Southern States — constituted a co-
operation party, which was defeated in the election of
delegates to a State convention ; a majority of whom
voted for immediate secession, and declared a secession
and separation from the other States of the Union. There-
upon both parties, while there was a partial division on
State affairs and in the election of State officers during
the war, cordially united in the revolutionary movement,
and supported the Confederacy and the war.
At the close of the war and up to the beginning of
Cono-ressional reconstruction under the amendments of
the Constitution we had no political party, but all stood
together upon the platform created for a common people,
under the situation of total subjugation and defeat.
We have seen that when the freed black race came
upon the exercise of the elective franchise under the
coercive .measures we have described, the voters of that
race massed themselves under the banner of their natural
allies, the national Republican party, and that the over-
whelming majority of the white voters were aligned
458 RECONSTRUCTION OF GEORGIA.
against them, and vindictively and spitefully against na-
tive Georgians and Northern Republicans who advised
and favored accepting the terms of reconstruction dictated
to us; and that in the brief period from 1868 to 1872
the majority yielded all opposition to the terms and to
the constitutional amendments, and cordially affiliated
with the despised few at home and the great body of the
national party in supporting and upholding them.
CHAPTER XIV.
Administration^ of Governor Bullock.
Recurring to the narrative of the State LegisLature un-
der Governor Bullock, it will appear that the subject of
prolongation excited much debate and controversy in
that body, and by the press. In this discussion it was in-
sisted that, in the face of the constitution, this General
Assembly, arbitrarily and without the two thirds vote re-
quired, prolonged its session in order to retain office and
power ; on the other hand, that their sessions were legal,
and demanded by the public interest and policy of the
State. The matter is of vital interest, on account of the
passage of most important acts in the session alleged to
have been illegally prolonged, and that the acts were
therefore void. The constitution prohibited that any ses-
sion after the second under that constitution should
extend beyond forty days, except by a two thirds vote of
both branches. The session of 18G8 was adjourned, and
a session held in 1869, which was adjourned and a session
held in 1870, which by only a majority vote was pro-
longed, and important bills passed after the expiration of
forty days — the lease of the Western & Atlantic r'ail-
road bill, to which special reference will be made, the
district court bill, the act requiring the taxes to have
been paid in before certain old debts could be collected
by suit, and other statutes.
The matter, however, went before the supreme court,
460 ADMINISTRATION OF GOV. BULLOCK.
a majority of the judges deciding that not to be a session
after the second under this constitution ; that the State
government was provisional until the constitutional
amendments had been legally adopted, as we shall here-
after see. And upon these rulings the legality of prolon-
gation was settled.
This Legislature, at its first session, proceeded upon the
apparent pressing necessities and demands of the people
in their impoverished condition. Slaves had been eman-
cipated, and lost as property to the former owners ; the
labor system had been demoralized ; real estate had be-
come redundant, and declined in market value ; live stock
of all kinds reduced by the waste of war ; much property
had been destroyed by fire ; a great deal had depreciated
by age and decay, for want of repairs. The circulating
medium, gold and silver, had been carried out during the
war ; bank bills withdrawn from circulation, and many of
them of reduced and doubtful value ; Confederate money
and bonds that had taken the place of these had died
with the government that issued them. A large propor-
tion of the State securities and treasury notes in the hands
of the people had been issued under laws enacted in aid
of the rebellion, and had, under Federal coercion, been
repudiated and made worthless to the holders. The peo-
ple who owed debts contracted on the faith of property
and securities now destroyed sympathized in the efforts
of the government of the State to afford them relief.
They regarded it as just that capital invested in promises
and obligations to pay money should share the general
loss, and be abated in proportion to the losses of other
capital. Many creditors, recognizing the justice and hu-
manity of this theory, did not hesitate to compromise
and settle at large reductions debts due them, while
ADMINISTRATIOX OF GOV. BULLOCK. 461
many insisted on the stern legal right to collect all that
was due them.
Many debtors paid up entire, dollar for dollar. Many
others were willing and ready to adjust and compromise,
and pay as much as they were reasonably able to pay ;
while others favored repudiation of debts, and favored all
the means proposed for avoiding, postponing, and obstruct-
ing the payment of old debts, and for reducing the
amounts due and claimed on them. They favored the
ordinance of 1865, the provisions of the stay laws, the
constitution of 1868, and the bankrupt law of 1867.
A voluminous act was passed for the relief of debtors
and to authorize the adjustment of debts upon principles
of equity, and an act to carry into execution the pro-
vision of the State constitution setting apart a homestead
of realty to the value of $2,000, and exemption of person-
ality of $1,000, both on gold value. These acts gave rise
to immense litigation in all the courts of the State. On
writs of error to the United States on constitutional
grounds, those laws which tended to prevent the collec-
tion of pre-existing debts were set aside, as impairing con-
tracts under the Constitution of the United States. Even
debts due for slaves were held to be binding by that tri-
bunal, notwithstanding slavery had been abolished and
forever prohibited by the Federal Constitution.
The spirit of enterprise and development then rife
among the people found a ready response in this Legisla-
ture, in the liberal acts incorporating railroad and other
companies, and other public acts to which reference will
be made.
On the 29th July, 1868, this Legislature on joint ballot
elected Honorable Joshua Hill and Dr. Homer V. M. Mil-
ler United States senators. By resolutions respectively
462 ADMINISTRATION OF GOV. BULLOCK.
in the House and Senate, passed in September, the colored
members of the Legislature were declared ineligible, and
for that reason were expelled. And thereupon a new
reconstruction began.
These negro members had been holding seats and act-
ing as legislators about two months, and voted on the pas-
satre of laws as well as in the election of officers and of
senators. Thej had been admitted to seats without ques-
tion of eligibility, as had all the white members, without
enquiry as to whether they were eligible to seats under
the requirements of the 14th constitutional amend-
ment.
When Mr. Hill, one of the senators elect, applied for his
seat at the December session of Congress, objection was
made, upon the grounds of these alleged illegal proceed-
ings ; and thereupon the whole matter underwent investi-
gation. It transpired that when negro members were
expelled, the white members receiving a minority of votes
were seated, that twenty-seven members disqualified by
the 14 til amendment held seats, and voted for senators.
At the session of December, 1869, upon the recom-
mendation of President Grant, Congress proceeded with
the reconstruction of Georgia by the passage of a law, by
large majorities in both houses, declaring the government
of the State provisional, until the State should be ad-
mitted to representation in Congress. Brevet Major-Gen-
eral Alfred H. Terry was in command of Georgia as a
military district — assigned by the President, January 4,
1870.
The Legislature, acting under the recommendation of
Governor Bullock, adopted the 14th Amendment again
which had been proposed by the 39tli Congress, and
ratified by that body in July, 1868. Also the 15th
ADMINISTRATION OF GOV. BULLOCK. 463
Amendment, which in the meantime had been proposed
by the 40th Congress. The General Assembly also pro-
ceeded to restore the negro members who had been
ejected, and to apply the test oath under the 14th Amend-
ment to the senators and representatives, and to seat the
defeated competitors of all who refused to qualify under
the requirements of that oath. Some members who had
served through two sessions previously were ejected, and
the persons who had received a minority of votes, called
and qualified in their places, and were voted pay from
the first of the first session. The ejected negro members
were restored, receiving full pay for the whole time ; and
the members who had been temporarily seated retired on
pay for the time they had served.
Under the constitution of 1S68, the Governor's term of
office was four years. Hence, in the popular elections of
1870, there were only the representatives and half the
senators of a legislative body to elect. This election
having resulted in the selection of Democrats with a de-
cisive majority in both houses. Governor Bullock would
have to hold the executive office contemporaneously
with a Legislature fully in sympathy with the people and
therefore hostile to him ; and there being various matters
hinted at, and statements made in private, and some of
them in the public press of the State, imputing criminal-
ity on his part in the administration of his office, and a
disposition to investigate and to prosecute, the dispir-
ited governor resigned his office and left the State.
At a later period, and after indictments had been pre-
ferred, the ex-governor was brought back under requisi-
tion of his successor, Governor Smith, placed on trial in
the superior court at Atlanta, and fully and finally ac-
quitted by the juries.
4G4 ADMINISTRATION OF GOV. BULLOCK.
Governor Bullock's departure from the State and vaca-
tion of the executive office occurred just before the
assembling of the Legislature-elect, which was known to
contain in each house a majority of Democrats. Benjamin
Conley of Augusta — a man oi Northern birth but long
residence there, a Republican, who had maintained the
character of a good citizen and reliable man — was one of
that half of the Senate elected for four years, and there-
fore would hold over with the governor. He was presi-
dent of the Senate at the previous sessions, and therefore
assumed the duties of governor as required by the con-
stitution.
Upon the organization of this Legislature, Hon. L. N.
Trammell, of Dalton, was elected president ; and Hon.
James M. Smith, of Columbus, speaker of the House of
Representatives.- Prompt action was taken by the Legis-
lature to bring on an election to fill for the unexpired
term the vacant executive office, while Mr. Conley, a
member of the Senate, w^as exercising the functions of
the office.
At a party convention, Hon. James M. Smith was put
in nomination, and at the election held soon thereafter
he was elected without formidable opposition. Soon there-
after he was duly inaugurated, and entered upon the
duties of the office. Hon. Jos. B. Cumming, of Augusta,
was elected speaker in his stead.
During the summer of 1872 — six months after the in-
stallation of Governor Smith — the Democratic party of
the State -was preparing by the appointment of delegates
to the national convention, in anticipation of the nomi-
nation of Mr. Greeley, a Republican ; and the full ratifi-
cation of reconstruction, and all the amendments to the
Federal Constitution, and the unqualified pledge of the
ADMINISTRATION OF GOV. BULLOCK. 465
party to their support, — all of which occurred soon after.
The convention of the party, of the State, in full accord
with the people, most cordially ratified the action of their
national delegates, and renominated Governor Smith,
without opposition, for the four years' term next ensuing.
He was elected by an immense majority over Hon. Daw-
son A. Walker, the Republican candidate. The public
odium that had attached to the Republican party during
its rule in the State, followed by the departure of the
chief, had completely dispirited the people and many of
the leaders. Judge Walker, though himself an able man
of good private character, was literally overwhelmed by
the new and popular Democratic governor, who had the
sympathies of the people in all parts of the State.
The most important work upon which the legislators at
this juncture entered, the one in which the people were
most in sympathy and accord with them, was the investi-
gation of the acts of malversation and fraud, which had
been publicly alleged through the press of the State, dur-
ing the preceding administration — by the governor, the
legislature, and public officers and employees of the State.
As it is the purpose to defer a full account of the times
following those of Republican rule, to a later volumes^ I
only present here the results of investigation in the im-
portant matters that had previously transpired, and were
part and parcel of action of predecessors.
Fraudulent Bonds and Public Debts.
This subject is directly connected with the faith, the
credit, and prosperity of Georgia. The excitement pro-
duced by its discussion and exposition was intense among
our own people, and also among the holders of the State's
obligations abroad.
30
466 ADMINISTKATION OF GOV. BULLOCK.
There were outstanding bonds and obligations to the
amount of $18,133,000. A majority of these bonds and
obligations had been denounced as bogus ; that they were
fraudulently issued, and without authority of law. It
was also alleged and claimed that they were issued for
valuable consideration by the governor acting publicly
for the State, and therefore the State was bound to re-
deem them. And still more strongly was it urged, that
very many of them had passed into the hands of inno-
cent holders — persons who were totally disconnected with
the alleged frauds, who at the time of paying value for
them had no knowledge or notice thereof, and therefore
acted in the most perfect good faith in taking them as
the bonds of Georgia.
The committee appointed for this important investiga-
tion were, from the Senate, Hon. Thomas J. Simmons of
Macon, now judge, by election of the last General Assem-
bly, of the Macon circuit ; from the House, Hon John
I. Hall, of Upson county, afterward appointed by Gov-
ernor Smith judge of the Flint circuit ; and Hon. Garnett
McMillan of Habersham county, afterwards elected to
Congress, who died during the term.
The committee devoted great labor and attention to
the facts that they elicited, and to the laws under which
the questioned bonds were issued, before making their
report, which involved a very large proportion of the
State's debts and liabilities. The public current of opin-
ion and feeling ran strongly with the committee and
against the validity of all bonds not issued strictly accord-
ing to law. Their report was adopted and became
the law as to those debts. I condense from the exten-
sive printed report, as follows : —
ADMIXISTEATIOX OF GOY. BULLOCK. 467
Alabama and Chattaxooga Eailroad Bonds.
In the matter of the Alabama and Chattanooga rail-
road bonds, under act of the Legislature of March 20,
1869, granting aid to this company, the governor en-
dorsed their bonds to the amount of ^194,000, that all
the requirements of the act, and the Constitution were
fully complied with, and the proceeding regular, except
the omission to attach the great seal of the State to the
bonds ; and that long acquiescence amounted to a ratifica-
tion, and that the State is bound by her endorsement of
these bonds.
Bainbridge, Cuthbert, and Columbus Railroad
Bonds.
The act of March 18, 1869, granting aid to this com-
pany required the completion by the company of twenty
miles of the road, to be in running order and free from
incumbrance, as a precedent condition to the indorsement
of the bonds to be issued for additional buildino; and
equipment; without the completion of any part of the
road, Governor Bullock endorsed bonds to the amount of
$240,000, to be binding when the signature of the Secre-
tary of State, and the great seal of the State should be
attached, which was never done These bonds were
negotiated to and held by persons wdio knew, when tak-
ing them, of the incomplete condition of the work, and
that the State would not be bound bv the indorsement
until the company should comply with the law. These
bonds were declared void as to the State's indorsement.
At the time of this action 11. 1. Kimball & Co., who
had obtained the charter from the corporators, who were
citizens residing at Bainbridge, Cuthbert and Columbus —
468 ADMINISTEATIOX OF GOV. BULLOCK.
Mr. Kimball himself being president of the road — had
failed, the work was entirely abandoned, and so it has con-
tinued to this time.
Cartersville and Van Wert Railroad Bonds.
By act of March 12, 1869, providing for aid to this
company, and without a compliance with its requirements,
Governor Bullock endorsed the bonds to the amount of
$275,000. This road also had passed from the corpo-
rators, citizens of that section of the State, into the hands
of H. I. Kimball & Co., and Mr. Kimball, who was presi-
ident, negotiated them to Henry Clews of New York,
the then holder, who was also treasurer of the company,
and had knowledge of the failure to comply with the law
prior to the endorsement of the bonds.
By Act of the Legislature of October 5, 1870, the
name of the company was changed to that of " Cherokee
Eailroad," instead of " Cartersville and Van Wert." And
thereupon, and while there was not a compliance of the
company with the requirements of the Act, the Governor
indorsed $300,000 of the bonds of the Cherokee Railroad
Company to take the place of those previously issued,
which latter were to be returned and cancelled. These
Mr. Kimball negotiated, without taking up or returning
the others.
Both sets of bonds for this company were declared
void as to the State's indorsement thereon.
Brunswick and Albany Railroad Bonds.
There were two Acts granting aid to this company.
One of March 18, 1809, providing for $15,000 a mile for
the whole road from Brunswick, on the Atlantic coast, to
ADMINISTRATION OF GOV. BULLOCK. 4G9
the river Chattahoochee, with rigid provisions to secure
the State against loss on account of her indorsement of
the company's bonds. The other amendatory of the first,
— 17th October, ISTO, when about 100 miles of the road
was completed, — providing for the issuing of the State's
own bonds to the amount of $8,000 a mile for the whole
road, and authorizing and requiring the Governor to take
up the company's second mortgage bonds amounting to
$2,300,000, and to pay the company for the same in the
bonds of the State of Georgia, at par, amounting to
$1,880,000.
Evidence is arrayed of the guilty knowledge and par-
ticipation of the holders and interested parties abroad ;
many gross irregularities are cited ; and the committee
say :—
" There was no investment by private parties, to give
to the State the security required by the constitution as
a condition precedent to the indorsement of its guaranty.
In every case, the bonds to cover the sum of the author-
ized guaranty were issued and indorsed before the com-
pletion, in the manner required by law, of the section of
the road, upon the completion of which only such guar-
anty could be given, under the State aid acts." Hence
the conclusion that the bonds were void as to the State's
indorsement. Their total was $4,480,000. It is recited
in the preamble to the first-named Act, that the State
was indebted to the owners of the road ; and they had
been damaged $3,400,000 by the tearing up and demoli-
tion of the road by the authority of the State during the
war.
The committee say this is false, as shown by the testi-
mony before them. That the control taken by Governor
Brown in October, 1861, was at the instance of the stock-
470 ADMINISTExVTIOX OF GOV. BULLOCK.
holders and managers, through their agent and president,
and under a contract with them. That the seizure of the
iron and materials of the road was consented to and
acquiesced in by the board of directors, and was not the
act of the State or her authority, but of the Confederate
Government; and they were used to facilitate the trans-
portation of troops and supplies for the Confederate
armies. And that the iron seized was all paid for.
There was great opposition at the time to this bill, on
account of the large sum of ^15,000 a mile for the whole
road, a part of which had been graded and in use before,
and on the grounds set forth in this committee's report.
The second bill, approved by Governor Bullock Octo-
ber 17, 1870, as a' fraud, seems to have no parallel in the
history of this State, in immensity of design, in abuse of
public trust, and in utter want of shame on the part of
the interested parties and outside managers. It was sup-
pressed in publishing the Acts of the Legislature. No
mention is made of the subject of this bill in any of its
j)hases in the Journal of either house of the Legislature.
The committee in their report, written by Judge Sim-
mons, say : —
" This Act w^as prepared by W. L. Avery in New York,
by him submitted to the board of directors in said city,
and by said board accepted and approved before it was
forwarded for introduction in the Georg-ia Lesrislature.
Frost and Clews, the president and treasurer, were cogni-
zant of the nature of the bill, and were advised of every
step in the course of its progress, of which any other
person in interest in New York was informed."
At the date of its passage, this New York company —
having had issued by the company, and indorsed by the
governor, in everj^ instance before the completion of the
ADMINISTRATION' OF GOV. BULLOCK. 471
work required as a condition precedent to the indorse-
ment, and not having invested any private capital to
secure the State, as the organic law required — had nego-
tiated or hypothecated these bonds, and had obtained
money thereon, and had constructed and placed in run-
ning order about 100 miles of the road. By the terms
of this Act, prepared by the attorney of the company in
New York, it was provided for an additional sum of
$8,0.00 per mile for the whole distance from Brunswick
to the Chattahoochee ; not by indorsing the company's
bonds, but by issuing the State's gold bonds ; and for
taking up the company's second mortgage bonds to the
amount of $2,350,000, and paying the company for the
same in the bonds of the State of Georgia, at par, amount-
ing to $1,880,000; and for placing the whole power
and supervision of the affairs in the Governor alone, and
cutting off the supervision of the State treasurer. The
report of this committee has not been denied, or the evi-
dence on which it was founded called in question to im-
peach its verity. That report contains the following
terse passage upon this stupendous Act : —
"There were, then, indorsed, under Act of March 18, 1869, 3,300 six per
cent, gold bonds of $1000 each, making $3,300,000. There were also issued
in aid of this road, to be exchanged for its second mortgage bonds, 1,880
seven per cent. State gold bonds of f 1000 each, making $1,880,000. By the
terms of the first Act, approved March 18, 1869, granting aid to this com-
pany, ' twenty consecutive miles ' must have been built ' in a substantial
manner' and be placed 'in good running and working order, which shall be
certified to by an engineer appointed by his Excellency the Governor/ where-
upon the ' company shall present to the treasurer of the State of Georgia the
bonds of the company,' 'amounting, in the aggregate, to $15,000 i^er mile
upon the road so completed, and from time to time thereafter, as often as
said company shall have completed any additional consecutive ten miles,' 'to
be certified as above,' ' the like indorsement may be had.' By the Act of
17th October, 1870, the above Act was so amended as to require the presen-
tation for indoi'sement of the company's bonds to the governor instead of
472 ADMINISTRATION OF GOV. BULLOCK.
the treasurer of the State. This same amending Act authorized and required
the governor to take up the company's second mortgage bonds, amounting
to $2,350,000, and to pay the company for the same in the bonds of the State
of Georgia at par, amounting to $1,880,000 — that bonds of the Si ate, at the
rate of $8,000 per mile, were to be issued to replace the second mortgage
bonds of the company at the rate of $10,000 per mile ; and this wise provis-
ion, for the credit of the State, was to be intrusted specially to the governor,
who, to render assurance of the State's credit doubly sure, was further
empowered, upon sixty days' failure of payment, at any time, of the semi-
annual interest on these second mortgage bonds, or the like failure to deposit
the sinking fund of two per centimi provided for in the deed of trust, to take
possession of the road with all its franchises and all the rolling stock and
other property, real and personal, and sell the same. By reason of the un-
timely ending of his Excellency's administration, this sale never transpired."
Macon and Brunswick Railroad Bonds.
The acts under which the bonds of this company were
endorsed by Governor Jenkins to the amount of $450,-
000, and by Governor Bullock, to the amount of $1,500,-
000 was by the act of 1866. Under an amended act of
1870, Governor Bullock also endorsed bonds to the
amount of $600,000, making a grand total of $2,550,-
000.
The committee say $2,100,000 were actually paid in
and invested in the road in good faith by private parties,
prior to asking for or receiving the aid. This was equal
to the amount of Governor Bullock's endorsement, but
not to that of all the bonds endorsed. The committee
referred the matter to the Legislature without a recom-
mendation; and thereupon that body resolved that the
State's guaranty placed on those bonds was binding upon
the State.
South Georgia and Florida Railroad Bonds.
Under act of 26th September, 1868, granting aid to this
company. Governor Bullock endorsed their bonds to the
ADMINISTRATION OF GOV. BULLOCK. 473
amount of $464,000. The statute and constitution hav-
ing been strictly complied with, the endorsements were
declared binding upon the State.
Western and Atlantic Eailroad Mortgage Bonds.
The sum of $614,000 of these bonds prepared and ex-
ecuted by Governor Jenkins, left by him in the Bank of
the Republic when he was expelled from his office, came
into the hands of GoverYior Bullock, who endorsed and
used them legally and properly in taking up past due
bonds of the State. These bonds were declared valid and
binding upon the State.
Currency Bonds.
Under act of 27th August, 1870, Governor Bullock is-
sued $2,000,000 of currency bonds, which were hypothe-
cated Henry Clews & Co., the Fourth National Bank of
New York, and Russell Sage of New York ; and loans
were made to the State. These bonds were intended as
a temporary issue, to be taken up and cancelled and re-
turned to the State treasurer, so soon as the bonds author-
ized by act of September 15, 1870, steel-engraved quar-
terly gold bonds, could be prepared ; under which, early
in 1871, Governor Bullock prepared, signed, and put in
circulation $3,000,000, and directed that the currency
be returned as cancelled. Governor Bullock intrusted
Mr. H. J. Kimball with the sale of the gold bonds, with
instructions to take up the currency bonds held by the
Fourth National bank, and by Clews. The bank surren-
dered the currency bonds to Kimball, who, instead of re-
turning them as instructed, kept $170,000 of them, and
received money on his own account. Clews receiving the
gold bonds refused to surrender the currency bonds, al-
474 ADMINISTEATIOX OF GOV. BULLOCK.
tlioiigli notified that they were retired by the issue of the
gold bonds. Russell Sage loaned the State $275,000
through John Rice, and received $530,000 of those cur-
rency bonds as collaterals. Governor Bullock afterward
forwarded him $500,000 of the gold bonds to take their
place, which he received; but he refused to surrender
the others, thus holding $1,030,000, to secure a debt of
$275,000.
Thereupon, it was determined, that the $2,000,000 of
currency bonds were all retired by the issue of the quar-
terly gold bonds, and were of no binding force against
the State of Georgia.
Quarterly Gold Bonds.
Under the act of September 15, 1870, which did not
limit the amount authorized. Governor Bullock issued, as
we have seen, $3,000,000. This authority to issue gold
bonds was to pay the bonds, coupons, and interest of the
State, due or to become due, and for such other general
or special pui poses as the General Assembly might desig-
nate ; $300,000 of these bonds which had been hypothe-
cated had been returned ; $ 102,000 not hypothecated, but
in the hands of Henry Clews as financial agent to sell,
the committee declare not binding on the State. The
balance were $2,598,000, some of which were hypothe-
cated, and some had been sold. Of these the committee
say $350,000 were given for the opera house, for the
Capitol, and the purchase of the Executive mansion.
Mr. Clews sold $1,650,000, and the remainder was manip-
ulated by Kimball ; the amount realized by him not
ascertained. Clews realized about $1,432,250; of this
sum. $375,000 were used in taking up past due bonds and
interest, and purchasing gold on State account; about
ADMINISTRATION OF GOV. BULLOCK. 47.5
$100,000 in pnjdng coupons of Western & Atlantic rail-
road mortgage bonds and interest on endorsed bonds of
Alabama and Chattanooga railroad ; $609,192 were paid
by Clews on the drafts of Bullock and Foster Blodgett,
the larger portion of which was represented to be on ac-
count of the Western & Atlantic railroad; $198,700
were paid to the Fourth National bank on account of the
State ; and the remaining $254,000 were paid for adver-
tising, expressage, notarial fees, telegrams, interest on ad-
vances, and other expenses attending the sale. The com-
mittee arrived at the conclusion that gold bonds issued
by Governor Bullock for the purchase of property, or sold
in the markets by his agents, should be recognized as
•good and binding; that those hypothecated, and on which
money was borrowed by the State, be returned to the
treasurer; the amount borrowed, with interest and rea-
sonable expenses of returning the bonds, be paid by the
issuance of new currency bonds having the same time to
run as the quarterly gold bonds, or in cash, at the option
of the holders.
The action of the Legislature was in accordance with
the conclusions of their committee.
Acting Governor Conley, in his retiring message to the
General Assembly in January, 1872, presents the follow-
ing statement of the action of Governor Bullock upon
the subject of the bonds, which we think proper to pub-
lish in connection with the facts set forth, and the action
of the committee and the Legislature thereon : —
"Under the autbority of acts of the Legislature, passed in 1868, there were
issued by Governor Bullock, to pay off the members of the General Assem-
bly and other expenses of that body, and to meet the interest due and un-
paid, and the interest maturing on the bonds of this State up to February 1,
1869, $600,000 of seven per cent, currency bonds. These bonds were never
intended for sale, but were only to be used as security for temporary loans
476 ADMINISTRATION OF GOV. BULLOCK.
made to the State until such loans could be met by payments from the
treasury. The amount borrowed upon them has long since been refunded,
as the books of the treasurer will probably show, and these currency bonds,
with the exception of two hundred and sixty-eight, which were deposited in
the treasury to secure the school fund that has been used by the titate for
general purposes, have all been cancelled and returned to the treasurer's
office.
" Under authority of acts of the General Assembly, approved August 27,
1870, September 15, 1870, and October 5, 1870, two millions of dollars
(■■$2,000,000^ of seven per cent, currency bonds were issued by Governor Bul-
lock for the purpose of being used as collateral security upon which to pro-
cure temporary loans for immediate use, which loans were to be applied to
the objects mentioned in those acts.
" These bonds were never intended, and were never offered for sale. They
■were issued for the simple reason that it required some time for the prepara-
tion of the steel-engraved bonds. The distinct understanding with the
parties to whom they were delivered was, that they were not to be placed
upon the market at all, but were to be held simply as temporary collateral
for any advances they might make to the State until the gold bonds provided
for in the act of September 15, 1870, could be prepared and substituted for
them, and that as soon as such gold bonds were substituted, the currency
bonds were to be cancelled and returned to this department.
" The gold bonds were subsequently prepared and were intended to be
substituted for these currencies, and to be used for the purposes provided for
by the act under which they were issued.
In pursuance of the understanding above mentioned, there have
been cancelled and returned to this office of these currency
bonds 8500,000
" The balance of these bonds are now held by the following parties :
Messrs. Clews & Co., of New York, have 800.000
Messrs. J. Boorman Johnston & Co., of New York, have . . 120,000
Russell Sage, of New York, has 530.000
The Fulton Bank of Brooklyn has 50,000
$2,000,000
"None of these currency bonds can be considered as being in any way a
claim against the State, because they were cancelled by the substitution of
the gold bonds in their stead. I have written to the various parties who now
hold them informing them of this fact, but they decline to return them on
the ground that it is not customary to surrender any securities until the ac-
count is closed.
" Under the authority of the act of September 15, 1870, there were prepared
and issued three million dollars (•$3,000,000) of gold bonds of the State, hav-
ADMINISTRATIOX OF GOV. BULLOCK.. 477
ing twenty years to run, -with interest at seven per cent., payable quarterly,
in gold coin. These bonds were issued for the purpose, as stated in the act
of meeting and redeeming all bonds of this State, and the coupons thereon
now due, or when the same shall have fallen due, and for sucli other pur-
poses as the General Assembly may direct, and to take the place of the cur-
rency bonds that had been issued for temporary purposes.
Of these gold bonds there were placed in the hands of Messrs.
Henry Clews & Co., of New York, for sale and to secure
advances made by them upon the currencies and otherwise, $1,750,000
There were placed in the hands of Russell Sage, of Xew York,
for the same purpose, 500,000
There were deposited in the Fourth National Bank of New
York, 300,000
There were placed in the hands of A. S. Whiton, of New York, . 100,000
There were given to Mr. H. I. Kimball, for the purchase of the
capitol building, 250,000
There were given to Mr. John II. James, for the purchase of the
Executive mansion, 100,000
$3,UU0,0U0
" These figures account for the whole issue of these gold bonds. The state-
ment of the account of Messrs. Henry Clews & Co. with the State is in the
treasurer's office, and is open to inspection. The detailed statements of the
other parties have not been forwarded to this office, but I have written to ob-
tain them, and they will probably be transmitted at an early day.
" According to the treasurer's report for the year ending December 31,
1870, there fell due, during the years 1870 and 1871, bonds of the State
amounting to $215,000. The larger portion of this amount, together with a
part of the interest upon other bonds of the State, as it fell due, has been met
from the proceeds of these gold bonds, as also the £15,000 sterling of bonds
which fell due in 1868, and the £3,000 interest due thereon. Large advances
have also been made upon these bonds to pay the claims passed upon by the
Board of Commissioners appointed to audit claims against the Western &
Atlantic railroad, and to pay the liquidated claims provided for in the act.
Notes of the Western & Atlantic railroad for large amounts, given for the
purchase of cars, engines, etc., and falling due in 1870 and 1871, have also
been paid from the proceeds of these gold bonds. An investigating com-
mittee of your honorable body can readily ascertain what has become of
every dollar that has been realized from the sale of these gold bonds. These
gold bonds have all been prepared in strict conformity with the law authoriz-
ing their issue, have been duly registered by the Comptroller-General in a
book kept for that purpose, and by him reported to the treasurer in precisely
the manner the act prescribes.
478 ADMIXISTRATIOX OF GOV. BULLOCK.
"Under the autliority of an act of the General Assembly, approved Octo-
ber 17, 1870, temporary lithographed gold bonds, to the amount of $SbO,000,
were prepared and issued, and placed in the hands of the officers of the
Brunswick & Albany Railroad Company, to be used for their temporary re-
quirements, until the regular steel-engraved gold bonds of tlie State, author-
ized by that act to be issued to the company, could be prepared. These
regular steel-engraved gold bonds were soon after issued, and tlie $880,000
lithographed gold bonds have all been cancelled, and are now in the
treasurer's office.
" The act of October 17, 1870, above referred to, authorizes and directs the
Governor of the State to receive from the President, or other officer author-
ized by the board of directors of the Brunswick & Albany Railroad Com-
pany, the whole issue of the second mortgage bonds of said company,
amounting to •^10,000 per mile upon said company's road, and amounting in
the aggregate to the sum of $2,350,000, and to pay said company for the
same in the bonds of the State of Georgia at par, bearing seven per cent, in-
terest, payable semi-annually on the first day of June and December in each
year, at the rate of $8,000 per mile, and in tlie aggregate amounting to
$1,880,000, the principal sum of said bonds to be payable in twenty- five
years from the first day of December, A. D., 1869, and his Excellency the
Governor is authorized and directed to cause said bonds to be executed in
due and legal form, and paid over to said company as aforesaid.
" Under the provision above recited, there have been issued and delivered
to the officers of the Brunswick & Albany Railroad Company, one thousand
eight hundred steel-engraved bonds of the State for $1,000 each, having
twenty-five years to run, with interest at seven per cent., payable semi-an-
nually, principal and interest payable in gold. These bonds have been duly
registered in the office of the Comptroller-General and reported to the
treasurer. All of the second mortagage bonds of the Brunswick & Albany
Railroad Company, for which these gold bonds were given in exchange, have
been forwarded to the treasurer's office as required by law, except one hun-
dred and sixty-two, which the company still hold, and whicli they will con-
tinue to hold, I suppose, until they have completed their road and received
the remaining eighty State bonds to which they will then be entitled. These
eighty bonds have been partially executed and are now in the Executive
office.
" The foregoing statement covers every description and character of bonds
that have been issued during the administration of my predecessor, and from
it your honorable body will see that the only kind of bonds issued by him
that are now outstanding, and that are a claim against the State, are the
$3,000,000 of gold bonds issued under authority of the act of September 15,
1870, and the $1,800,000 of gold bonds issued to the Brunswick & Albany
Railroad Company in accordance with the act of October 17, 1870. The
actual liability of the State, therefore, incurred during his administration,
ADMINISTRATION OF GOV. BULLOCK. 479
is represented by the sum of !|4,800,000. It should not be forgotten that a
large portion of this sum has been devoted to the redemption of bonds fall-
ing due in 1870 and 1871, and in years previous thereto, and to the payment
of interest on them and on others still to fall due. The debt of the State is
not, therefore, actually increased by that amount.
" The contingent liability of the State, incurred by the General Assembly
during the time that my predecessor was in office, is represented by the in-
dorsement of the State upon bonds of railroad companies.
" The railroads upon whose bonds the indorsement of the State has been
placed during the administration of Governor Bullock, and the amount of
such indorsement as they appear from the records of this department and
from the books in the offices of the Secretary of State and treasurer, are as
follows :
Alabama & Chattanooga, $ 194,400
Brunswick & Albany, 3,300,000
Cartersville & Van Wert, * . 275,000
Cherokee Railroad, 300,000
Macon & Brunswick, 2,150,000
Georgia Air Line, 240,000
South Georgia & Florida, . . . > 464,000
Total, ' . . . $6,923,400
" At the last session of the Legislature, the charter of the Cartersville &
Van Wert road was so amended as to change the name of that road to the
Cherokee Railroad, and the indorsement of the State was placed upon the
bonds of the road under its new name.
" The bonds of the Georgia Air-Line road, upon which the indorsement of
the State was placed, have been cancelled by the officers of that road and re.
turned to this department, and are now in the ti'easurer's office. This in-
dorsement amounts to $240,000, and should be deducted from tlie total
amount above stated. The sum of $0,683,400 then remains, which repre-
sents the total amount of contingent liability of the State, now outstanding,
incurred during the administration of Governor Bullock.
" If has been ascertained from the officers of the Macon & Brunswick Rail-
road Company, that $400,000 of the bonds of that company were indorsed by
Governor Charles J. Jenkins, no record of which indorsement is found on the
books of this department. If we add this sum to that last above stated, we
have an amount of $7,083,400, which represents the whole amount of contin-
gent liability incurred by the State since the adoption of the policy known as
" State Aid." The conditions upon which this aid is granted are familiar to
your iionorable body. As the State does not indorse the bonds of any road
until a specified portion of that road has been actually completed, and then
only for a sum equal to half the cost of construction, and as she has a prior
480 ADMINISTRATION OF GOV. BULLOCK.
lien upon the property of the road, in the event the conditions upon which
her indorsement is given are not complied wilh, it is not believed that she
will ever be tlie loser to any great extent, and this contingent liability should
not by any means be put down as actual indebtedness.
" The above statement covers the whole period that my predecessor was in
office, and is a complete and accurate summary of his official action in the
matter of which it treats."
Western and Atlantic Railroad Lease.
In December, 1871, under resolution of the Legisla-
ture, a committee composed of lion. Wm. M. Reese and
Hon. A. D. Nunnally of the Senate, and Hons. Geo. M.
Netherland, Charles B. Hudson, and Geo. F. Pierce, Jr.,
was appointed, " to investigate the fairness or unfairness
of the contract made between Rufus B. Bullock as gov-
ernor, and the present lessees, known as the Western
& Atlantic Railroad Company, by which the' road with
all its appurtenances was leased to that company, on the
twenty-seventh day of December, 1870, under the act of
the Legislature passed at the last session, and to in-
vestigate the question of fraud in said contract, if any
exists."
The Lease Act, though passed by the Republican legis-
lature, and sanctioned by their governor, was introduced
by Hon. Dunlap Scott, a Democrat, warmly advocated by
Democratic members, and approved by a large majority
of the people of the State. This great public work, as
was shown in the early part of this volume, was long a
source of public expense, in addition to the vast cost and
public debt for construction. It was, moreover, a politi-
cal agency in the hands of dominant parties, as well as a
cause of irritation and strife, not to say of fraud and
public corruption. We have seen the magic and striking
revolution in its management under Governor Brown,
when he came into power in 1857; and his grand success
ADMINISTRATION OF GOV. BULLOCK. 481
thence up to and during the war, in making it a source
of revenue instead of a public burden.
It had now pa-ssed into the hands of an administration,
was controlled b'y appointees not possessing the public
confidence, and was being made a wreck as to material ;
and also a drain on the public treasury. The party had
power to pass a pending bill to sell the road, and, as we
have seen, had wonderful facility for spending and squan-
dering the money. Foster Blodgett, the superintendent
under Governor Bullock, who with him had dra>vn out
upwards of $600,000 of the State's funds from Clews, her
agent for the sale of bonds in New York, on the pretence
of paying the expenses of the road, was then asking the
Legislature for an appropriation of $500,000 to repair
the road.
During the twenty years that had elapsed since the
completion of the road, upwards of $-1,000,000 had been
appropriated out of the treasury from time to time for it,
a sum far exceeding the amounts paid into the treasury
from it, leaving out the war period of heavy payments in
depreciated currency.
Tbe public mind was ready to accept a solution of the
matter which promised to stop the immense leakage from
the treasury and increase of taxation to meet it ; prevent
the loss of the property, proven in the time of Governor
Brown to be immensely valuable, by a sale of the road,
and sequestration and peculation of the proceeds by un-
safe men in power; and, in addition, a reasonable and
steady income to the State for a period of twenty years,
with the road and all its appurtenances reclaimed from
waste, kept and returned in good order at the end of
the lease. The public mind was still better satisfied and
pleased when the lease was awarded to a company
31
482 ADMINISTRATION OF GOV. BULLOCK.
headed by Ex-Governor Brown himself. It was at once
an assurance of its success as well as good faith and integ-
rity.
The Legislature had been elected without reference
to it. There were strong prejudices against Governor
Brown, and some of his associates who were Northern
men ; there was vindictive feeling against Governor
Bullock, then a refugee from the State. There was also
a competing company for the lease, having among the
members many men of worth, integrity, political and
social influence, and financial ability, to which power and
influence w\is added that of some of the most able and
popular men in the State, who were retained as attorneys.
The charge through the press that -the lease contract
was fraudulent was easily made, and met with the sym-
pathy of a large number of the best people in the State ;
and there was no solution to satisfv either side but a
thorough and sifting investigation. It was made by able
lawyers wdio composed the committee, men of integrity,
and resolute to bring out facts, with the period of several
months within which to perform their w^ork.
WhQn their report came in at the July session, 1872, the
matter was ably discussed for consecutive days in each
House, a large majority in each House agreeing with the
minority of the committee, sustaining and vindicating the
lease in full harmony with an overwhelming majority of
the people of the State, as everywhere indicated by their
outspoken voice and through the press.
It was against all the committee except Mr. Nunnally,
and against a highly respectable minority of the General
Assembly, many of whom in the heat of the contest ad-
hered to their original convictions and feelings against
the lease.
ADMINISTEATION OF GOV. BULLOCK. 483
The General Assembly adopted this resolution, which
put the whole matter at rest thence to this time : —
" That, in the opinion of this General Assembly, the
lease of the Western & Atlantic Railroad secures to
the State a certain sum for rental much larger than can
be hoped for under political control."
The wisdom of preventing the sale of this public work
by this plan to lease it is abundantly manifest by the
fact that the company, after expending large amounts
of their own money to repair, improve, equip and make it
a first-class road, and having kept it up to that standard,
has paid into the State treasury the monthly rental of
$25,000 for nine years and three months (this April,
1880), making an aggregate of $2,975,000 which have
gone in lieu of the people's taxes. The company has
also made money largely, and holds the road for the State
with its value largely enhanced.
The lease act made $25,000 per month the minimum
rate of rental, required bond and ample security of $8,-
000,000, that the lessees be at least seven in number, and
a majority of them be bona fide citizens of this State, and
that they be worth above their indebtedness at least
$500,000, and forbade the governor to lease to a com-
pany that tendered even doubtful security.
A bid of $36,500 was made by a company all of the
city of Atlanta, composed of M. G. Dobbins, Foster Blod-
gett, A. K. Seago, Henry Banks, W. B. Dobbins, John
K. Wallace, Wm. McNaught, James Ormond, Thomas
Scrutchins, James M. Ball, A. C. and B. F. Wyley, T. J.
Hio-htower & Co., P. and G. T. Dodd, Abbot & Bro., John
Collier, S. B. Hoyt, John M. Harwell, W. J. Tanner, and
A. Leyden, who showed that they were worth above their
indebtedness, $950,000 \ and tendered as security the
484 ADMINISTEATION OF GOV. BULLOCK.
Central Railroad and Banking Company, the South-
western Railroad Company, and the Macon & Western
Railroad Company.
Notice was filed with the governor, by W. S. Holt,
president of the Southwestern Railroad ; A. J. White,
president of Macon & Western Railroad ; and W. B. John-
son, agent of the Central Railroad & Banking Company,
denying the authority of this company to tender those
corporations as security, and refusing to become their
security on their proposal to lease.
The company who obtained the lease showed that
they were worth above their indebtedness $4,000, 000.
It was composed of Joseph E. Brown, Benjamin H. Hill,
Wm. S. Holt, John T. Grant, Andrew J. White, Benja-
min May, Hannibal I. Kimball, John P. King, Richard
Peters, Charles A. Nutting, Wm. B. Johnson, Wm. C.
Morrill, Alexander H. Stephens, and H B. Plant, all of
this State, Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania, John S. De-
lano of Ohio, Wm. T. Walters of Maryland, Thomas A.
Scott of Pennsylvania, Edmond W. Cole of Tennessee,
George Cook of Connecticut, Ezekiel Waitzf elder of New
York, Thomas Allen of Missouri, and Wm. B. Dinsmore
of New York.
They offered as security the Central Railroad and Bank-
ing Company, the Southwestern Railroad Company, the
Macon & Western Railroad Company,the Georgia Railroad
& Banking Company, the Atlanta & West Point Railroad
Company, the Macon & Brunswick Railroad Company, the
Brunswick & Albany Railroad Company, all in this State ;
Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad Company, and the St.
Louis & Iron Mountain Railroad Company, with verifica-
tion as to the worth of the applicants and the securities
offered.
ADMINISTRATION OF GOV. BULLOCK. 485
Governor Bullock decided that this was the only bid
that complied with the requisitions of the lease act, and
awarded the lease to this company. And thereupon the
road and all the property that appertained to it were
turned over to them, at the stipulated rental of $25,000
per month, or §6,000,000 for the whole period.
CHAPTER XV.
A Summary of Governor Brown's Cuaracter.
The personal history of Governor Brown is blended
with and becomes an important part of the history of
the State, as appears up to the time of his displacement
by the military power of the United States at the close of
the late war ; and his political course after the war and
during the period of the reconstruction of the State, and
of political parties fully appears in that part of our narra-
tive.
Governor Brown like all leaders of the people has
been the subject of opposition, and has suffered defeat.
The failure of the Confederacy was a sore and humili-
ating defeat to him, as well as to all the dominant party
leaders of the South. After his brilliant triumphs before
the people of the State, anterior to and during the war,
never having been defeated in any popular election,
and after he had become the leader of reconstruction
in this State and. the subject of extreme and bitter oppo-
sition by his former political friends and allies, he be-
came a candidate for the first time before a legislative
body — a body composed of a large majorit}^ of members
agreeing with him in political tenets. He was nomi-
nated by the party caucus for the office of United States
senator. His former defeated rival in 1863 for the office
of governor, the Hon. Joshua Hill, became also a candi-
date and, dividing the Republican and receiving the
./
GOVERNOR BROWN'S CHARACTER. 487
Democratic vote of the General Assembly, was elected
over Brown.
Soon afterward he was nominated by Governor Bul-
lock and confirmed by the Senate, as chief justice of the
supreme court of the State for the term of twelve years.
It had been eleven years since he resigned the judge-
ship of the Blue Ridge circuit, to enter the Executive
office. He had grown older and maturer in judgment,
his intellectual powers had been quickened and strength-
ened by constant and often intense and exciting labor
and application in the matters of state. The people,
even those who severely condemned his late political
course, awarded to him superior mental power and fit-
ness for the judicial office.
The expectation of the public was amply fulfilled in
the prompt, firm, able, and impartial administration of the
chief justice during his short career. Hon. Hiram
Warner — who had long been a superior court judge in early
life, a superior court judge after the close of the war, a
supreme court judge for eight years on the first organiza-
tion of the court, and since the war chief justice, and
who is now the chief justice — and the Hon. H. K. Mc-
Kay, a man of great ability and labor, were his associates.
Many of the questions for adjudication were new and ex-
citing to the public mind. The judges sometimes dif-
fered in opinion and, all being made of stern material,
they continued to differ. The published opinions are
characterized by learning, ability, and firmness, and form a
series of authoritative decisions on all the important legal
and constitutional questions of that period. In the latter
part of 1870 Governor Brown resigned the office of chief
justice and took charge of the Western & Atlantic Railroad,
as president of the company of lessees, as we shall see.
488 GOVERNOR BROWN'S CHARACTER.
His career since retiring from active connection with
politics appears to the public to have been, if possible,
better adapted to his capabilities and talents, and has
been crowned with still greater success, as a financier, in
the management of the public enterprises confided to him,
as well as in that of his own private fortune ; for the ten
years intervening are matters of universal commendation
and approval in commercial and business circles, because
of a general and grand success, free from all well grounded
suspicions, implication or charges of unfairness, fraud or
violation of public or private faith and engagements.
In this characteristic, which distinguishes him from
many of his contemporaries, he has erected to himself a
monument that will be and should be more enduring
than the stones that an earthly accumulation may and
will, within a few years rapidly coming and going, place
above his resting place in mother earth.
One of the enterprises in which he embarked, which
has proven to be a grand financial success, and connects
him directly with the material welfare and progress of
the State, in the development of a part of her vast sub-
terranean wealth, was that of coal mining at Sand Moun-
tain in Dade comity, near the borders of Alabama and
Tennessee. This enterprise began as a private company,
but was afterward incorporated under the name of the
Dade Coal Company. The stock is owned, one-half by
Joseph E. Brown, and son Julius L. Brown; the other
half by John T. Grant, and son W. D. Grant, and W. C.
Morrill, of Atlanta. Ex-Governor Brown has been pres-
ident of this company from its organization to this time.
The company owns fifteen thousand acres of lands of
untold mineral deposits ; employs three hundred State
penitentiary convicts as lessees of the State; and about
GOVERNOR BROWN'S CHARACTER. 489
one hundred other persons as enghieers, laborers, over-
seers, and guards. Their works turn out from 13,000 to
14,000 bushels of coal per day; which yields a large
amount of coke, as good as any in the United States,
which supersedes the burning of timber for charcoal.
In addition to these extensive coal and coke operations,
under the presidency and sagacious management of Ex-
Governor Brown, that company in connection with Mr. J.
C. Warner of Tennessee has lately purchased the Rising
Fawn iron property and furnace, in Dade county, embrac-
ing about seven thousand acres, including a large amount
of coal and iron ore, and has upon it one of the finest
iron furnaces of the country.
The whole property, including construction of the fur-
nace and improvements, cost the new company, the origi-
nal owners, upwards of a half million of dollars. The
company, under authority of an act of the Legislature,
issued their bonds to the amount of $300,000 secured
by mortgage on the property, and, having made default
of payment of the interest for a considerable period of
time, the bondholders proceeded to foreclose the mort-
gage in the United States circuit court for Georgia. Un-
der the decree of foreclosure, the property was sold
by the United States marshal at Atlanta, and purchased
by the Dade Coal Company, and Mr. Warner, an experi-
enced iron manufacturer, for one hundred and thirty
thousand dollars. These parties are operating the fur-
nace successfully. It consumes from eighty to ninety
tons of coke per day, which is made at the Dade coal
mine ; also consuming per day about one hundred tons
of iron ore, and producing per day about fifty tons of
pig iron.
In connection with this the Dade Coal Company is
490 GOVERNOR BROWN'S CHARACTER.
constructino^ a railroad from Rosrers station on the West-
ern and Atlantic railroad to some inexhaustible deposits
of superior iron ore, located on Petet's creek in Dade
county ; from which it is expected the company will ship
large quantities to the different places in the South.
In view of the vast improvements in railways and
works at the company's expense, the vast and increasing
demand for their products, and that of the deposits of coal
and iron belonging to them, these enterprises taken to-
gether are much the largest and most important of any
of the kind ever made in the State.
His successful management,while governor, of the West-
ern & Atlantic railroad, as the property of the State ;
the conversion of the immense public capital invested in
it, from what was constantly denounced as a vast political
machine attended with public expense, to the basis of a
well managed and paying railroad ; excluding political
corruption and private peculation, making it a source of
great income to the State treasury, — has only been equaled
by his successful career as president of the company of
lessees from the State, from 1870 to this time.
Perhaps no higher tribute has been paid to his superior
forecast, sagacity, and entire safety and reliability as a
business man, than the presidency of the Southern Rail-
way and Steamship Association, in 1874, upon its organ-
ization, and the annual re-election from that time to the
present.
This association embraces all the steamship lines
running down the Atlantic coast, and most of the railways
east of the Mississippi river, between the Potomac and
the Ohio.
His grand and far-seeing policy of public education,
that engrossed so much of his heart and mind while gov-
GOVERNOR BROWN'S CHARACTER. 491
ernor, far in advance of the situation and public spirit of
that period, has grown upon the succeeding period, and
has already attained a wonderful success, and promises
still greater in the near future. While not holding any
political office, he has, since the adoption of the school
system provided for by the constitution of 1868, held the
position of president of the educational board of Fulton
county, and has also been a most devoted member of
the board of trustees of the State university of Georgia
for upward of twenty years. He has educated his sons
there in later years, but from his earliest connection with
this great center of Southern learning, he has been an ar-
dent and devoted friend in public and private, devoting
his mind with all its power, to the consideration of the
vast and comprehensive aims of the institution. And it
is no disparagement to the array of able and devoted men
who are associated with him, that he lias always exercised
a very large and controlling influence in the councils and
deliberations of the board.
In no circle he ever enters as a participant is he looked
down upon by a senior in ability, power, practical judg-
ment, and influence. Most men, even of great ability,
eminence, and wealth, who are associated or come in bus-
iness contact with him, have long since learned to look
up and defer to this prodigy of a man, who, within a few
years after leaving the old-field log-cabin school and the
handle of the plow, sprang to the first rank, not only as
a statesman and jurist, but as a philanthropist in project-
ing enterprises for the public good, and as a man of far-
seeing wisdom and prudence in all matters of business,
either for the public or as related to his own private
affairs.
And if superior excellence is to be found in one sphere
492 GOVERNOR BROWN'S CHARACTER.
of his activity of mind and body over another, it is per-
haps in the last named department. He grew up a farmer
boy, and has carried forward his early training to
great improvement, and with great profit to the present.
In addition to the public enterprises that engross so much
of his time and mind, he has kept up farming as a con-
stant business ; and although he has not figured in the
current agricultural literature of his time, he has been
eminently practical and successful in his investments and
operations. In this, a ^ in every other matter under his
control, he has been endowed with almost prophetic wis-
dom in the selection of agents and superintendents ; and
has with them what but few men can truthfully claim in
business matters, that, added to inflexible justice and
promptness in dealing, he is invariably firm in the re-
quirement of faithfulness from them.
He has three large farms in Northern Georgia, in the
counties of Cherokee and Gordon, on which, by his
regular direction, through employes, there is annually
carried on a well diversified and profitable system of agri-
culture.
But the plan adopted by Governor Bro\vn soon after
the war, of drawing in investments from other sources,
and placing them in the charred and desolate ruins of the
wonderfully progressive city of Atlanta, has been per-
haps in proportion to or ginal costs the most powerful
and effective agency in the rapid accumulation of his fort-
une.
To all who would study the business example of Joseph
E. Brown with profit, it is not considered out of place to
add that but few men have been endowed as he is,
with brain capacity, energy, the power of endurance and
perseverance, quickness of apprehension and rapidity of
GOVERNOE BROWN'S CHARACTER. 493
decision ; and perfection of schemes and plans for his pur-
poses ; but few, who like him, can either mould and bring
about circumstances, or adapt themselves to the unavoid-
able. And there are but few who are so entirely exempt
from habits of intemperance and excess as to hope for
his perfect steadiness and regularity of life. These quali-
ties in the ex-Governor when realized to exist, as all do
realize them who have an opportunity, indicate at once to
the reflecting the sources of his great success.
But there is one mental and business habit, and of ac-
tion and repose, that all, now and hereafter, may study
and practice with benefit.
He works with the regularity of a perfectly adjusted
machine ; is temperate in the application of supporting
diet, as is a skilled machinist in the application of steam;
and sleeps by the force of controlling will power as
promptly and soundly as the wheels and levers of the
machine stop and rest when the steam is shut off. This
is the great and valuable key to explain how a man of
naturally frail and feeble, though tough and durable physi-
cal constitution has been able to live, enjoy health, and
perform the herculean labor he has for the whole period
of his manhood.
He is different from almost all business men in another
mental habit; that is, one thing at a time. When Brown
is on railroading, or coal, or iron mining, farming, or any
other subject, for the time being all his powers are so en-
grossed in and devoted to that as to shut out all the
others ; and when he suspends, the subject is laid aside at
a given point, and precisely at that point, when the time or
occasion arises to make it necessary, he resumes it as easily
and promptly as the tailor resumes w^ork upon an unfin-
ished garment, or the carpenter the incomplete edifice.
494 GOVERNOE BROWN'S CHARACTER.
But not by far the least important method and agency
of the financial success, in all his large and small enter-
prises, may be summed up in one word, promptness.
It is a fundamental and tenaciously adhered to principle —
adopted from boyhood and followed without exception,
up to the present — to meet every financial engagement
or liability with absolute promptness, no matter what the
inconvenience or cost might be. Hence, his credit has
never been the subject of criticism or doubt in any finan-
cial circle. This, with the sagacity and forecast which
w^ere in great measure the gift of the Creator, and which
have been cultivated and enlarged by practice that ena-
bled him to determine wdien it was safe and advisable to
make those engagements, has contributed wonderfully to
the success that has crowned the laborious life of Joseph
Emerson Brown. For the sake of the moral, religious,
financial, educational and material welfare of his countrv
and ours, it will be well if the period under Divine Provi-
dence is still distant in the future, when the sorrowful
mind of his memorialist shall be called on to set forth the
deeds of benevolence and charity, of the honest business
man, jurist, statesman, philanthropist, and Christian.
CHAPTER XVI.
Supplement Prepared for the Publishers, Bringing
THE Narrative of events to September, 1883.
Colonel Fielder's volume ends with the last, the 15th
chapter. The current of events in Georgia is brought
from the year 1872, when he closes his narrative, up to
the date of the publication of the book in September,
1883.
The administration of Gov. James M. Smith continued
until the 12th day of January, 1877. Among the more
important public matters during his terms that have not
been alhided to were the establishment of the depart-
ments of agriculture and geology, and the endowment of
the State University at Athens with the Land Scrip Fund,
and the resultino: oro-anization of branch collesres at Mil-
ledgeville, Cuthbert, and Thomasville. Tlie department
of agriculture was begun on the 26th of August, 1874,
by the appointment of Dr. Thomas P. Janes as commis-
sioner. He was reappointed in 1878, resigned in Septem-
ber, 1879, and was succeeded on the 24th of September,
1879, by the Hon. John T. Henderson, who is still commis-
sioner. It is difficult to measure the value of this depart-
ment. It has introduced rust-proof oats and wheat, ren-
dering these valuable crops a certainty. It has not only
protected the farmers from loss by frauds in commercial
fertilizerSjbut it has by the proceeds of inspection supported
the department and paid large sums into the State treas-
viry, running as high as $64,060.23 in a single year. It
496 DEPARTMENT OF GEOLOGY.
has operated a constant and valuable interchange of ideas
and practices among the planters. It has distributed
new and valuable seeds for trial and adoption. It has
revolutionized the old systems of planting, furnishing
progressive methods and processes, increasing the yield
and lessening the cost of production. Its periodical pub-
lications of farmino^ intelligence have disseminated bene-
ficial information, and formed the basis of valuable
statistics and comparison of experiences. Its manuals
upon special stock industries have been a liberal education
to the people in such specialties. Each year adds to the
efficiency and utility of this department.
The department of geology was inaugurated by the
selection of Dr. Georij^e Little as State oreoloacist, Aujirust
10, 1874. The department was run until the year 1879,
when the General Assembly unwisely refused to appro-
priate the necessary funds to continue its operations.
The benefit of a complete geological survey of the State
may be understood from the valuable practical results
that have followed from the partial survey that was
made. Large mining and manufacturing enterprises
have sprung into existence, drawing capital and increas-
ing the taxable wealth of the State, based upon the revela-
tion of the resources of the Commonwealth made by the
geological department.
The recent death of Ex-Gov. Charles J. Jenkins recalls
that during the term of Governor Smith, that venerable
and illustrious citizen and chief magristrate of the State
returned to the executive department the executive seal
which he had carried with him when removed from his
high office by the military. The Legislature of 1872
passed a resolution introduced by the Hon. J. B. Gum-
ming authorizing the governor to present to Governor
ADMINISTRATION OF GOV. COLQUITT. 497
Jenkins a gold copy of the executive seal with the suggest-
ive inscription upon it, " Presented to Charles J. Jenkins
by the State of Georgia," and the words "iyz arduis Fi-
delis.*^ Governor Smith performed this agreeable duty
through Hon. J. B. Gumming in an appropriate letter, to
which Governor Jenkins made an eloquent response ; in
the recent legislative honors paid to the memory of Gov-
ernor Jenkins, the orator Col. Charles C. Jones, Jr., made
touching reference to this incident.
During Governor Smith's term Gen. John B. Gordon
was elected to the United States Senate, in 1873, while
Hon. Alexander H. Stephens was re-elected to Congress,
from which he had retired to private life before the war.
In 1875 the Hon. Benjamin H. Hill was elected to Con-
gress.
Governor Smith was succeeded by Gov. Alfred H. Col-
quitt, who held the exalted office of chief magistrate from
the 12th of January, 1877, until December 4th, 1882.
The administration of Governor Colquitt was marked by
many important public events and marked changes in the
State government. The leading political occurrence during
his terms was the sweeping alteration of the orgnnic law
of the State by the constitutional convention of 1877, of
which the lamented Jenkins was the president. The
Constitution of 1868, while it w^as a very good instrument,
labored under the odium of having been framed by a
body chosen under the strong dictation of bayonet rule, and
there was a large element in the State who held it in such
disfavor that after continued agitation of the subject the
Legislature of 1877 passed an act giving the people an
opportunity to vote a constitutional convention into ex-
istence if they desired it. The vote was a very small
one, aggregating 87,238, and the convention was carried
32
498 COXSTITUTIOXAL CONVENTIOy OF 1877.
by 9,124 majority. The body was a, fair representative
organization of the State's best men ; there were 28 pub-
lic men who had been governors, United States senators,
congressmen, and judges The largest measure enacted
was the creation of the commission to manaire the rail-
roads ; the terms of officers were shortened, and sala-
ries reduced ; judges and solicitors were made elective by
the Legislature instead of appointive by the Governor
with the advice and consent of the Senate ; the State
House officers were made elective by the people instead
of by the Legislature ; the homestead was reduced ; State
aid was forever prohibited ; the payment of the illegal
bonds was forbidden ; the increase of the public debt was
inhibited ; biennial sessions of the General Assembly
were adopted ; an attempt was made to restrict local leg-
islation by requiring local notice, and burdening legislation
with troublesome formalities. The people were allowed
to vote on the question of locating the capital at Milledge-
ville or Atlanta, and the reduction of the homestead ;
the vote gave Atlanta a majority of 43,964; for the home-
stead of 1877, 42,722; and for the ratification of the new
Constitution, 69,495.
The Legislature carried out the constitutional innova-
tion for controlling the railroads by the creation of a com-
mission. In October, 1869, Governor Colquitt appointed
under this act as railroad commissioners, Ex-Gov. James
M. Smith for six years, Major Campbell Wallace for four
years, and Samuel Barnett for two years. Upon the ex-
piration of Mr. Barnett's term in October, 1881, Governor
Colquitt appointed Hon. L, N. Trammell, and Major Camp-
bell Wallace was re-appointed in August, 1883, as his own
successor. There has been a steady opposition by some
of the railroads to the commission ; the Savannah, Florida
THE RAILEOAT) COMMISSION. 499
& Western railroad made an effort in the United States
court to resist the commission, but failed. The Geors-ia
railroad in the State courts instituted suit for the same
purpose, but met with defeat; every issue made in the
law tribunals to dwarf the authority of the commission
has failed. The Georgia railroad will carry its case
to the Supreme Court of the United States, when there
will be a final adjudication of the power of the Board.
It is generally conceded that the commission has sought
to do justice to the railroads while endeavoring to pro-
tect the popular interest, and under its orders the busi-
ness of the roads has increased. The practical workings
of the body have been beneficial. The commission has
made repute for itself and the State, and served as a
model for other States.
Governor Colquitt's administration was a singularly
beneficial one in practical results for the State. At the
very inception of his term he was called upon by the Gen-
eral Assembly to send in a message giving suggestions
upon public policy. He framed a document full of valu-
able ideas that were afterwards carried out to a large ex-
tent. He treated in this carefully prepared paper the
questions of a complete return of property for taxation, of
both a closer and cheaper collection of taxes, of reducing
the cost of legislation, of cutting down the clerk hire of the
General Assembly, of diminution of outlay in the printing,
contingent, and building funds, of reducing the clerical force
in all the executive departments, of abolishing superfluous
offices and instituting a general system of small economies.
He went into the details of these reforms, evincino; his
careful study of the subject and mastery of the questions
involved.
During his terms there were paid into the public
500 DECREASE OF PUBLIC DEBT.
treasury from outside sources $213,731.34, on old claims
connected with the war of 1836 and the Western &
Atlantic railroad; the sum of $216,683 27 was collected
from the railroads of the State on hack taxes of 1874,
1875, and other years, besides a larger annual railroad
tax secured; the sum of $164,608.12 was collected in
earnings from the Macon & Brunswick railroad that
had not paid belbre anything to speak of; the floating
debt of $200,000 w^as completely wiped out; the public
debt was reduced from $11,095,879 to $9,343,500, or
$752,379, in addition to four per cent, bonds redeemed ;
the rate of taxation was reduced from five-tenths of one
per cent., or fifty cents on the hundred dollars, to two
and a half tenths of one per cent., or twenty-five cents on
the hundred dollars, or one-half; the practical effect of
the reduction of the rate of taxation being that under the
five-tenths rate the large sum of $1,229,268 was raised
on taxable property of $345,853,750 ; while under the
two and a half tenths rate at the close of Governor
Colquitt's terms, $700,000 was raised on $270,000,000 of
property, the people being relieved of $750,000 in round
numbers, of actual annual taxation.
There were, during Governor Colquitt's admirable ad-
ministrations, lengthy legislative investigations into sev-
eral of the departments of the State government, includ-
ino; an examination into his own official act of endorsing
$260,000 of the bonds of the Northeastern railroad.
Governor Colquitt's conduct was fully endorsed, and he
was re-elected governor by an overwhelming majority.
The investigations into the State departments left the
executive wholly unaffected. At the end of Governor
Colquitt's term he was elected by the General Assembly
to the United States Senate for the term of six years
THE WESTEKN AND ATLANTIC R. R. LEASE. 501
beginning on the 4th day of March, 1883. This honor
was won by this gentleman, like his re-election as Gov-
ernor, under a full test of the public sentiment after con-
tests of great warmth, and under circumstances peculiarly
gratifying.
The career of Governor Brown since 1872 has been
full of steady growth in public esteem, the rectification
of an unjust and severe public misconception of his
motives and acts during, reconstruction, wider recognition
of his private excellences, legitimate enlargement of his
private means and influence and a broadening public use-
fulness and honor. Resigning the distinguished position
of chief justice after only two years most capable service
and renouncing ten years of his term, a conclusive dem-
onstration that his unpopular position upon reconstruc-
tion had been uninfluenced by personal ambition, he
devoted himself for years to the quiet pursuit of his pri-
vate fortunes. His position as president of the company
that leased the Western & Atlantic railroad brought
him into various conflicts with the Legislatures of the State
to repel assaults made upon the integrity of the lease.
In these conflicts, covering the Legislatures of 1872 and
1874, he exhibited all of those remarkable powers that
belong to the man. Cool, poised, tireless, full of resources,
aggressive, master of the subject, he made himself master
of the situation.
A joint committee of the General Assembly of 1872,
consisting of Senators A. D. Nunnally and William M.
Reese, and Representatives C. B. Hudson, George M.
Netherland and George F. Pierce, investigated for weeks
the circumstances of the granting of the lease. Every
fact was patiently sought ; the examination of witnesses
was as complete as it could be made ; the discussions
502 LEGISLATIVE INVESTIGATIONS.
were full, coverino; the whole i>:round. The Seaoro-Blods:-
ett company, as the rival organization seeking to obtain
the lease was called, with strong counsel, made strenuous
efforts to invalidate the lease contract. The result was a
decisive victory for Governor Brown and his co-lessees ;
the lease was affirmed in the most solemn manner.
Again in 1874 a legislative assault was made upon the
lease, and a lengthy investigation resulted in a complete
victory for the lessees. In this as in the previous ordeal
Governor Brown was the leader of the defence, exhibitina;
the same masterly qualities of management, and the same
effective handling of a good cause that gave no chance for
defeat and secured the triumph of the right against
powerful and well-conducted attack. Governor Brown in
this last contest gave a characteristic illustration of that
species of ambush that in conflicts of argument and inter-
est, as well as in war, proves very effective. The gentle-
man antagonizing the lease was forgetful enough to deny
the existence of a letter whose production overwhelmed
him with confusion, weakened his effort and discomfited
him to such an extent as to wholly emasculate his oppo-
sition. Several times in Governor Brown's battles has
he sprung forgotten letters upon opponents with power-
ful effect. And his antagonists have learned to dread his
resources and strategy.
The last General Assembly made another lengthy inves-
tisjration into the lease to ascertain the status of the bond
and the ownership of the shares, and referred the whole
matter to the attorney-general, with instructions to report
to the Governor whether the bond should be strengthened,
and, if after notice the lessees should fail to do so, to
institute suit to abrogate the lease. All of this was done.
The present General Assembly after a full discussion of
GOV. BROWN'S MINING ENTERPRISES. 503
the matter wisely passed a resolution to dismiss the suit
and let the lease alone. Senator Brown made an argu-
ment before the Senate committee which covered the
whole ground. This powerful paper of the distinguished
president of the lease company was conclusive. It placed
the matter in so strong a light, and was backed by
so large a public sentiment in the State, that the Legisla-
ture by an overwhelming majority passed the resolution
to dismiss the suit, declining to either require an increase
of the bond or the payment of the costs of suit by the
lessees, both of which propositions were pressed. This
decisive action is probably a final settlement of this active
and costly lease agitation. It is safe to say that no other
person could have carried the lease through the trying
ordeals through which it has passed besides Senator
Brown. And his triumph over so many and such vigor-
ous attacks has been a crucial test of his remarkable
abilities.
Governor Brown for many years devoted himself almost
exclusively to business pursuits, pretty nearly ignoring
politics. He became, as we have seen, president of the
Western & Atlantic Railroad Company, He also became
president of the Dade Coal Company, working four hun-
dred and fifty hands, of which three hundred and fifty
were convicts of- the State. This coal company owned
about twenty-five thousand acres of coal and iron lands,
and has been run with the same successful business
methods that have marked all of the enterprises both
large and small that have been managed by this remark-
able man. He became president of the Walker Iron and
Coal Company, which is worked in connection with the
Dade Coal Company, working about ninety tons a day.
The Dade Coal Company also owns very valuable beds of
504 PHENOMENAL SUCCESS
iron ore in Bartow county, which are being worked to
profit by Governor Brown and his company. The writer
has no doubt that these various mineral properties will em-
brace one million dollars of capital. These three mineral
interests controlled and worked by Governor Brown em-
ploy over eight hundred hands. He was president of the
Southern Railway and Steamship Association, which em-
braces the great lines of Southern freight transportation.
Whatever scheme he handled was conducted by him
with consummate ability and sagacity. He seemed equally
at home in every species of material industry. No new
business proved too much for his extraordinary and varied
capacities, or was able to baflie his comprehension and
mastery. His marvellous business career has been as phe-
nomenal as his political course, as full of daring surprises
of achievement. His executive ability was simply proof
against any draft upon it; his multifarious trusts were any
single one of them enough for an ordinary man. But so
well systematized are his labors, so judicious his selection
of agents and subordinates, so masterly and correct his
grasp of the principles of each industry, so thorough his
supervision, so firm his authority and so intelligent and
sensible his policy, that he keeps well in hand his many
enterprises and drives them all to remunerative success.
He is less in a hurry than any living man, and he does
all things thoroughly ; he is the most deliberate of men,
and the most attentive to his smallest obligations. He
forgets nothing, omits nothing, attends to everything.
The most trivial undertakings that he assumes are re-
membered and executed. His wonderful despatch of
business, however, while due \ery largely to systematic
method, and prompt attention, is attributable also to
native cjualities of mind and will that few men possess.
IN BUSINESS LIFE. 505
He has, beyond the most of men, a quick intuition and a
rapid judgment. He has uncommon industry and
energ}^, but with them the capacity of swift assimilation,
and instantaneous decision. His mind leaps to prompt
conclusions and accurate ones ; what he weighs in his mind
is conned over with searching power of native analysis,
looking dispassionately to just results without self-decep-
tion growing out of self-interest, but with a marvellous
power to confront and own the truth. Governor Brown
does not allow his wishes to deceive his perceptions, as
the most of men do. He has the sense to see the reality,
in which the majority of men are like him, and the nerve
to admit it to himself and act on it, in which he is unlike
the majority of men. His superiority is in his more
thorough investigation, swifter judgment, and more reso-
lute determination. Add to these his perfect system and
we have the range of business qualities that have made
Governor Brown so phenomenally successful in business.
All of the time, however, that Governor Brown was
pursuing his material plans of wealth, his name had ever
a mysterious and perennial potency in public matters.
He was the hidden power of Georgia politics, believed to
be the ruling spirit of every campaign, endowed by the
popular fancy with an inscrutable influence in framing
every result, and alternately anathematized and be-
praised as the omnipotent author of defeat or victory.
His subtle agency Avas alleged in every piece of deft
strategy that scored a triumph or discomfited an oppo-
nent. His strong hand was imaginatively discerned in
every political combination. His wily brain was claimed
in each wise or fruitful movement of great parties. It was
remarkable how the public mind endowed the man, and
all this was a striking practical tribute to his genius.
506 THE TILDEN-HAYES ELECTION.
Governor Brown did occasionally make a political
stroke ; he had urged the acceptance of reconstruction,
but he stopped right at the line of what he considered
absolute public necessity. He went not one step beyond. '
He had fought every ^vrong of the reconstruction regime
from prolongation to robbery. He had opposed addi-
tional reconstruction that sought an unnecessary resubju-
gation of the Southern States. He had condemned Grant
and Bullock when their administrations bore with gratui-
tous severity upon our people ; Avhen a man named Isaac
Seele}^ invented a trick to get Congress to prevent the
abridgment of voting for non-payment of taxes by the
fabrication of affidavits showing the denial of the right
to vote by false challenges, Governor Brown exposed it
in an open letter.
He w^as ready at all times and in any way to serve the
public w^elfare. In the memorable contest between Mr.
Tilden and Mr. Hayes for that great prize, the presidency
of the United States, won by Mr. Tilden at the ballot
box, but enjoyed by Mr. Hayes, Governor Brown took an
important and historic part for the Democracy. Bur-
dened with his multiplied and onerous business cares,
suffering from a disease of the throat that rendered him
really unfit for any duty private or public, he yet laid
aside his private matters and, ignoring the admonitions
of his physician, he went to Florida and spent weeks
there in obedience to the call of the Democratic party
to give his great abilities to the investigation of the
alleged election frauds upon whose proof rested the
hope of making Hayes president. If the vote of Florida
for Tilden could be set aside his election could be pre-
vented. In this uncommon and novel contest for the
presidency of fifty millions of people, the little orange
THE FLORIDA CONTEST. 507
El Dorado of the South was one of the battle-fields, and
Governor Brown was the Democratic leader in that cru-
cial struggle, and the cynosure of the nation's gaze.
Well did he bear the Democratic standard in this unique
conflict. It involved the purity of the ballot, the revela-
tion of fraud, and the vindication of the popular will.
Through all the tedious and trying enquiry Governor
Brown remained the unpaid advocate of public welfare
and political honesty, with consummate ability, sleepless
vigilance, and determined boldness, defending the right
and exposing the wrong. His speech was a masterpiece,
analyzing the law with unerring astuteness, and discussing
the principles with profound power.
Governor Starnes was the Republican executive of the
State, claiming the right to decide who were chosen elec-
tors. The courts were sought to enjoin him from using
this dangerous authority. With the decision in the hands
of a partisan Governor there was no chance for the Demo-
crats whatever. The Electoral Board had one Democratic
member, and therefore there was more possibility of fair
dealing before the Board than before the Executive. Gov-
ernor Brown was chosen to make the argument before the
court against the jurisdiction of the Executive in the
matter, and his strong and conclusive argument given
below settled this part of the case.
THE FLORIDA COXTEST.
Text of Ex-Govkrnor Joseph E. Browm's Argument.
" May it please your Honor :
" As His Excellency, the Governor, in his answer in this case has not dis-
claimed jurisdiction over the subject of canvassing the election retuhis, and
has used no expression which amounts to a pledge, or which precludes him
508 GOVERNOR BROWN'S ARGUMENT.
from assuming the jurisdiction at any future day, it is proper to discuss the
question as to liis
Legal Powers in the Premises.
"In the division of labor in this case, the duty has been assigned me of
submitting an argument which I have prepared with some care, showing that
the Governor of the State of Florida has no power given by any statute
of the State, or other known law, to canvass the returns of the flection for
electors of President and Vice-President of the United States, and determine
the result. That power, as we contend, is vested by the statutes of the State
in the Board of State canvassers composed of the attorney-general, the sec-
retary of state and the comptroller of public accounts; and if vested in them,
then the Governor has no right to exercise it, and an attempt to do so would
be an assumption of power not conferred upon him. The question of the
jurisdiction of yonr Honor to grant an injunction restraining His Excellency
from the assumption or usurpation of such a power has been and will be fully
discussed by other counsel M-ho also appear for complainants in this bill. I
shall confine myself to a discussion of the questions above mentioned.
"And at the expense of being somewhat tedious, I shall take up the Con-
stitution and laws of the United States bearing upon this question, and such
of the statutes of the State of Florida as may be necessary to a proper under-
standing of it, and discuss them. And I shall incorporate in this argument
such liberal quotations from the statutes as may be necessary to show the
current of legislation on this subject, and such as may lead us — construing
the whole together — to a safe conclusion on the question of disputed juris-
diction. In discussing this question it may be very important to inquire
whether or not an elector of president and vice-president is a State ofEct-r.
"The Constitution of the United States, article 2, section 1, paragraph 2,
declares that, 'each State shall appoint in such manner as the Legislature
thereof may direct, a number of electors equal to the whole number of sena-
tors and representatives to which the State may be entitled in Congress.'
" Article 12, amendments, declares that the electors shall meet in their re-
spective States and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, and sets
forth the manner of conducting such election by ballot. It then provides for
a meeting of the two Houses of Congress, when the President of the Senate
shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the
certificates, and the votes shall then be counted, and the person having tiie
greatest number of votes for President shall be President, if such number be a
majority of the whole number of electors appointed, and if no peisou have
such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers, not exceed-
ing three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Represen-
tatives shall choose immediately by ballot the President. But in choosing
the President, the votes shall be taken by States, the representation from each
State having one vote ; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member
GOVEENOR BROWN'S AEGUMENT. 509
or moiiibers from two-thirds of the States, and a majority of all the Statea
shall be necessary to a choice.
Electors State Officers.
" Now it seems very clear from these provisions of the Constitution of the
United States that the electors of the several States who meet in their
respective States act as the officers or representatives of their State, and not
as officers of the Federal Government; and this conclusion is greatly strength-
ened by the provision made for the election of President, in the event no one
has received a majority of all the electors appointed. In that case, it is not
the officers of the Federal Government, nor the representatives of the Federal
Government who choose the President ; but the House of liepresentatives
make the choice, the representation from each State having one vote. In
other words, each of the respective States by its representation in .the House
of Representatives in Congress casts one vote for President. In that case,
the State of Florida has the same weight in the election of President as the
State of New York. The election, in other words, is made by States, each
speaking through its representation in the House of Representatives in the
Congress of the United States, and not by the officers or agents of the Fed-
eral Government. And it is necessary that two-thirds of all the States shall
vote to make an election ; and a majority of all the States is necessary to a
choice.
" The Constitution of the United States, therefore, leaves no room for rea-
sonable doubt that the electors for President and Vice-President are the
officers of their respective States, and that they act for their respective States
in casting tlie vote for President and Vice-President, and in case of a failure
of the electoral colleges to make a choice, the States themselves, each having
equal weight with another, through tlieir representation in the House of
Representatives of tlie United States, proceed to elect a President. So much
for the constitutional provisions.
Searching the Statutes.
" The Act of Congress provides that electors of President and Vice-Presi-
dent shall be appointed in each State, on the Tuesday next after the first
Monday iu November in every fourth year succeeding every election of a
President and Vice-President. Revised statutes of the United States, sec-
tion 131, section 133 declares that : ' Each State may by law provide for the
filling of any vacancies which may occur in its college of electors, when such
college meets to give its electoral vote.' Section 131 declares that, 'whenever
any State has held an election for the purpose of choosing electors, and has
failed to make a choice on the day prescribed by law, the electors may be
appointed on a subsequent day in such manner as the Legislature of such
State may direct.' Section 135 declares that, ' the electors for each State
shall meet and give their votes upon the first Wednesday in December iu
510 GOVERNOR BROWN'S ARGUMENT.
the year in which they are appointed, at such place in eacli State as the
Legislature of such State may direct.' Section 136 declares that, ' it shall be
the duty of the executive of ench State to cause three lists of the names of
the electors of such States to be made and certified, and to be delivered to
the electors on or before the day on which they are required by the preceding
section to meet.'
"An examination of these general provisions of the statutes of the United
States seems to sliow very conclusively tliat the electors of President and
Vice-President are in every case, and under every contingency, to be chosen
by the respective States, that they are the officers or representatives of such
States — that they are not authorized to meet anywhere except within tlie
limits of their respective States; and in case of a vacancy in the electoral
college of any State, it is left to the State to provide for the filling of such
vacancy. And in case any State has held an election at the proper time and
failed to make a choice of electors on the day prescribed, her electors are to
be appointed on a subsequent day in such manner as the Legislature of such
State may direct. And it is
"Worthy of Note,
in this connection, that the electors are not directed either by the Constitu-
tion of the United States or the laws of the United States to be appointed
by popular election in the State; they are not, therefore, the representatives
of tlie people of the United States, nor are they in the strict sense the repre-
sentatives of the people of the State, but they are the representatives of their
respective States. The State is left to determine for itself whether they shall
be appointed by popular election, at which all the qualified voters in the State
shall have a voice, or whether it will appoint them in some other manner.
The State has a perfect right to appoint them in any manner directed by its
Legislature. Prior to the late war the State of South Carolina appointed its
electors by its Legislature. The State of Florida in the election of 1868
appointed its electors by the Legislature and not by popular vote. The State
of Colorado in the present election appointed its electors by its Legislature,
and not by the popular vote.
" The electors are, therefore, unquestionably the representatives or otficers
of the State. They are appointed by the State to represent the State in
casting the vote of the State. They are compelled to meet in the State, and
they are paid by the State, and they ar,e therefore officers of the State.
" To show moie clearly the distinction between State and Federal officers, it
is only necessary to say that such provisions are made by the laws of the
United States as to secure the appointment of all Federal officers independ-
ently of the action or non-action of the respective States. But if a State
should not choose to vote for President and Vice-President and should pass
no law providing for the appointment of electors, and should make no such
appointment, no power exists in the Federal Government to make any such
GOVEENOR BROWN'S ARGUMENT. 511
appointment. If the electors were officers of the Federal Government, it
would not be in the power of the State to prevent their appointment ; but
being officers of the State Government, it is left with each State to appoint
them or not, as she may think proper. Iler failure to make the appoint-
ment simply deprives her of her vote in the election of President and Vice-
President. And she can exercise such right or refuse to exercise it at her
discretion, independently, and without accountability to the Federal Govern-
ment or any other power, which is
Wholly Incompatible
with the idea that the electors are Federal officers or Representatives of the
Federal Government.
"By reference to the act passed by the Legislature of Florida in 18i6, it
will be seen that the Governor, sixty days prior to the time provided by said
act for the election of electors of President and Vice-President of the United
States, was required, by proclamatiun to be inserted in at least one newspaper
published at the seat of government, and such other papers printed in the
State as he might see fit, to give notice of the time of such election, and of
the number of electors of President and Vice-President to be chosen. And
the persons qualified to vote for members of the House of Representatives of
the General Assembly of the State (who were at that time confined exclusively
to the white race), on the thirty-fourth day preceding the first Wednesday in
December, unless it should be on Saturday or Sunday, and in that event on
the succeeding Monday, in the year 1848, and in every fourth succeeding
year, were to assemble at the place designated for holding elections, and were
to proceed to elect a number of electors of President and Vice-President
equal to the number of Senators and Representatives the State might be en-
titled to in Congress, etc.
*' And it was made the duty of the inspectors of elections at the different
precincts in each county to hold the elections in the manner prescribed, and
to seal up the poll-book of the election, which was to be carried within two
days after the election to the sheriff of the county, who was required to
attend two days succeeding the election at the court-house for the purpose of
receiving the poll-books.
" The sheriff upon receiving the poll-books was to administer an oath or
affirmation to each inspector who delivered said poll-book, and receipt for the
same. And it was the duty of the sheriff to deliver, or cause the same to be
delivered, to the secretary of state at his office within twenty-five days after
the election.
The Returning Boards.
" The poll-books, on the 26th day, unless it was Sunday, and in that event on
the 27th day after the election, as the statute provide.^, shall be opened by the
secretary of state in the presence of the comptroller-general and the treasurer
of the State, and such sheriffs as may choose to attend ; the secretary of
512 GOVEKNOR BKOWX'S ARGUMENT.
state shall cause the poll-books as they are opened to be read aloud, and shall
make out a fair abstract of the names of the persons voted for, and the num-
ber of the votes given to each. He shall make out and sign a certificate
containing in figures and words written at full length the number of votes given
in tlie State for electors of President and Vice-President of the United States ;
the names of the persons for vi^liom such votes were given, and the number
of votes to each, which certrficate shall be recorded by the secretary in his
office, ami published in one or more of the newspapers printed in the State
for the information of the public; and the Governor shall forthwith make out
for the number of persons to be elected, and who have the greatest number
of votes, certificates of their being duly elected electors of Piesident and
Vice-President of the United States, and transmit by special messenger or
other safe conveyance the proper certificate to each person so elected. Pro-
vision is then made for the election in case of a tie, by lot, and the balance of
the statute provides for the mode of filling vacancies in case of the absence
of any elector, and for the manner of casting the vote, etc , and also for
the election of electors in case of a vacancy in the offices of President and
Vice-President.
" As will subsequently appear, the whole election system of this State has
been changed since the act of lSi6, and the present plan is so much in con-
flict with said act that no portion of it probably can be said to be still of
force. But if the provision of said act in reference to the canvass of the
electoral vote be still in force, then it is very clear that the power of canvass-
ing is not given by said act to the Governor, but to the secretary of state,
who was to make the canvass in the presence of the comptroller-general and
treasurer, and such sheriffs whose duty it was to bring up the poll-books from
the different counties as might choose to be present. And upon the fact
being ascertained who was elected, when the vote was canvassed by the secre-
tary of state, it was made his duty to make out and sign a certificate show-
ing who was so elected, to record the same in his office, and to publish the
result iu one or more of the newspapers printed in the State, for tiie informa-
tion of the public; and it was then made the duty of the Governor, upon such
canvass and publication made by the secretary of state, to give the certifi-
cates as is required by the Act of Congress and the statute of the State to
the persons elected, not upon his own canvass of the votes nor upon a can-
vass of votes made in his presence, but upon that made by the secretary of
state in the presence of the officers above mentioned.
The Governor's Duties.
"It is further to be noted that, under the Act of 1846, the Governor was
required to give sixty days' notice preceding the election, which it is not pre-
tended was done by him in this case. In other words, neither the Governor
nor the State House officers are now acting under the act of 1846, but under
the acts passed in 1868 and in 1872 respectively.
ARGUMENT IN FLOEIDA. 513
" The act of 1872 in its whole machinery differs from the act of 1846 up-
on which we are informed those who claim jurisdiction over this question
for the governor predicate, at least in part, their argument.
" In the first place, the electors are not the same. Then only free white
men were electors ; now the colored race as well as the white race are elec-
tors. Then the sixty days' notice was required to be published by the gov-
ernor ; now it is the duty of the secretary of state to make it out and deliver it
to the sheriff of each county, stating in said notice what offices and vacancies
are to be filled at such general election in the State, county, or district and
to cause a copy to be published at least sixty days.
" Then the inspectors of election could only be free white men, now they
may be wliite or colored. Then they were appointed by the governor, now
they are appointed by the county commissioners who are appointed by the
governor. Then the inspectors of election at the different precincts or
polling places returned the result to the sheriff not appointed by the
governor, at the county site, within two days after the election ; now
they are given six days to return it, not to the sheriff", who is now ap-
pointed by the governor, but to the county judge, the clerk of the
district court, and a justice of the peace, all appointed by the governor.
Then the sheriff had twenty-five daj's within which to deliver the poll-book
to the secretary of state, under penalty of one thousand dollars. Now
thirty-five days are allowed for the returns to reach the office of secretary
of state and governor. We might give numerous other particulars, in
which the act of 1868 differs from and is inconsistent with that of 181:6 ; but
as the act of 1816 gave the canvass to the secretary of state, and not to the
governor, we think it unnecessary. We will next notice the
Changes made in the Canvassing Board
by the act of 1868. As already shown, the act of 1846 gave the secretary of
state power, in the presence of the officers already mentioned, to canvass the
vote. The 28th section of the act of 1868 provides that, on the first Tues-
day next after the fourth Monday in November, next after any general elec-
tion, or sooner if the returns shall have been received from the several
counties, the secretary of state, attorney-general, and comptroller, or any
two of them, shall meet at the office of secretary of state pursuant to notice
to be given by the secretary of state (or in his absence or inability to
attend, by the governor,) and proceed to canvass the returns of such election
and declare who shall have been elected by the highest number of votes to
any office as shown by said returns.
" Section 30 declares, ' When any person shall be elected to the office of
elector of president or vice-president, or re'presentative in Congress, the
governor shall make out, sign and cause to be sealed with the seal of the
State, and transmit to such person a certificate of such election.'
" Thus it will be seen that the act of 1868 substitutes the secretary of
33
514 ARGUMENT IN FLOEIDA.
state, attorney-general, and comptroller as the canvassing board, in place of
tiie secretary of state in the act of ISIG, and requires a certificate from them
of the election, similar to that made by the secretary of state under the act
of 1840.
" And by section 30, of the act of 1868, it is made the duty of the governor
to make out and sign, and cause to be sealed with the seal of the State, and
transmit to tlie person elected a certificate of his election, just as he was re-
quired to do under the act of 1846, under the canvass made by the secretary
of state in presence of his associate officers. Under that statute, the secre-
tary of state made the canvass in presence of the treasurer and comptroller-
general ; under the act of 1868 the secretary of state, comptroller, and attor-
ney-general make the canvass, and the governor in each case issues the
certificate, upon the canvass as made and certifi.ed by them. The acts of
1846 and 1868 are, therefore, in complete harmony on this point.
The Act of 1871
repeals the 2Sth section of the act of 1868, above quoted, and re-enacts it,
substantially changing the canvassing board by substituting the clerk of
the supreme court for the comptroller, and making the three officers, or any
two of them with any other member of the Cabinet whom they may desig-
nate, the canvassing board, and with the farther change, that the canvass
shall be on tlie 35th day after the holding of any election, general or
special, that may hereafter be held for any State officer, member of tlie Leg-
islature or representative in Congress, or sooner if the returns shall have
been received from the several counties wherein elections have been held.
The third section of
The Act of 1872
repeals the act of 1871 above referred to. The first, second and fourth sec-
tions are still of force, and are the last acts passed by the Legislature upon
that subject. Section one enacts as follows : —
" ' The first section of an act to provide for the registration of electors and
the holding of elections, approved August 6, 1868, is hereby amended so as
to read as follows: A general election shall be held in the several counties
in this State on Tuesday next succeeding the first Monday in November,
in each year, in which elections are required to be held for an election of
such of the following officers and representatives as are to be elected, that
is to say : a governor, lieutenant-governor, representative in Congress,
electors of president and vice-president, State senators and members of the
Assembly and such county officers as are to be elected as provided by Con-
stitution and laws.'
" Sec 2. The second section of said act is hereby amended so as to read as
follows : *a governor, lieutenant-governor, and electors of president and vice-
president shall be elected in the year 1872 and every fourth year thereafter;
senators in the districts designated by odd numbers in the year 1872 and
ARGUMENT IN" FLORIDA. 515
every fourth year thereafter ; senators in the districts designated by even
numbers, in the year 1874 and every four years thereafter ; a representative
in Congress and members of the General Assembly, in the year 1S72 and ev-
ery two years thereafter; constables and such other county officers, as are to
be elected in the year 1872 and every two years thereafter.'
" ' Sec. 4. On the 35th day after the holding of any general or special elec-
tion for any State officer, member of Legislature, or representative in Con-
gress, or sooner, if the returns shall have been received from the several coun-
ties wherein elections shall have been held, the secretary of state, attorney-
general, and comptroller of public accounts, or any of them together with
any other member of the Cabinet who may be designated by them, shall
meet at the office of the secretary of state, pursuant to a notice to be given
by the secretary of state, and form a board of State canvassers and pi'oceed
to canvass the returns of said election, and determine and declare who shall
have been elected to any such office, or as such member as shown by such re-
turns. If any such returns shall be shown, or shall appear to be so irregular,
false, or fraudulent that the board shall be unable to determine the true vote
for such officer or member, they shall so certify, and shall not include such
return in their determination and declaration ; and the secretary of state
shall preserve and file in his office all such returns, together with such other
documents and papers as may have been received by him or any of said
board of canvassers. The said board shall make and sign a certificate con-
taining in words written in full length the whole number of votes given for
each officer, the number of votes given for each person, for each office, and
for member of the Legislature, and therein declare the result; which certifi-
cate shall be recorded in the office of the secretary of state, in a book to be
kept for that purpose, and the secretary of state shall cause a certified copy
of such certificate to be published once in one or more newspapers printed
at the seat of government.'
The Effect of the Statute.
" Now we understand that the advocates of the assumption of jurisdiction,
by the governor put much stress upon the language of section four just
quoted, which gives the board of canvassers jurisdiction in case of any State
officer, member of the Legislature, or representative in Congress. ]t isclaimed
that this does not give the board jurisdiction in tlie case of electors of presi-
dent and vice-president, because they are not again mentioned. They are
mentioned in the first and second sections of the act of 1872 just quoted, to-
gether with the other State officers. In the fourth section they are not ex-
pressly mentioned, nor is governor, lieutenant-governor, constable, or other
county officers, which are all mentioned in sections one and two. The office
of governor, lieutenant-governor, elector of president and vice-president, con-
stable and county officer, which are all embraced in sections one and two,
516 ARGUMENT IN FLORIDA.
are included in section four under the general designation of ' State officer.'
As governor, lieutenant-governor, county officer, constable, etc., are all
omitted by name in the fourtli section, and are all included under the gen-
eral term ' State officer,' so is elector of president and vice-president, which
is repeated with them in each of the previous sections also omitted because
included under said general designation.
" As we think we have clearly shown in the commencement of this argu-
ment that a presidential elector is a State officer, we see no room for any
doubt that the term ' State officer,' in the fourth section gives express juris-
diction in case of presidential elector to the canvassing board. Indeed, we
think that part of the case too plain to require further argument.
*' We understand the assumption of jurisdiction by the governor in this
case is also claimed on the ground of necessity. Pardon us forsaying that
this is the plea by which usurpation is always attempted to be justified, and
we trust your honor will not find it necessary to countenance it in this case.
The claim set up for the governor, as we understand it, is that the act of
1872 gives to the canvassing board thirt^'-five days within which to complete
the canvass, unless the returns from the several counties which held the elec-
tions are sooner in. And it is argued, as the thirty-five days may extend be-
yond the first Wednesday in December, the time fixed for the electoral col-
lege to meet, that the State may lose her vote unless the governor assume
the jurisdiction. This cannot be true, for the reason that the canvassing
board is authorized to proceed as soon as the returns are in from the several
counties where the elections were held, and if
The Governor assumes the Jurisdiction
he will not be authorized to proceed and issue the certificate upon the returns
from only a part of the counties of the State. There is no reason why the
canvassing board cannot take up the returns, canvass them and declare the
result at as early a day as the governor can properly do it. There is, there-
fore, no danger that the vote of the State will be lost, unless the inspectors
of tlie election in some of the counties, selected by the county canvassers, ap-
pointed by the governor, have failed to do their duty in sending up the re-
turns to the county canvassing board ; or unless the county canvassing board,
all of whom were appointed by the governor, fail to do their duty in sending
up the returns to the secretary of state's office. As the law presumes that
these officers will do their duty, and as the Democratic party is doing all in
its power to urge them to send up the returns as early as possible, and is
anxious for a fair canvass of tlie returns at the earliest day, when it can be
done, there is, we trust, nothing to apprehend on the score of a loss of the
vote of the State. There certainly cannot be if the governor's appointees
discharge the duties imposed upon them by the statute, and their faikire to
discharge it would be no reason why lie should assume authority not conferred
upon hiin either by the act of 181G, or any other statute of tlie State.
ARGUMENT 11^ FLORIDA. 517
"We beg to submit for the consideration of your Honor, one other view
of the question which seems to us to be conchisive why the governor should
neither consent, nor be permitted to exercise even a doubtful jurisdiction in
this case. As already stated, the governor appoints all the county commis-
sioners in every county in Floi'ida, and has the power to fill all vacancies.
The county commissioners appoint each board of election inspectors at each
precinct in each county in this State. These inspectors are the managers of
election at the precincts or polling places. They are virtually his appointees,
because they are appointed by the commissioners appointed by the governor.
They make the returns to the county canvassing board composed, as already
stated, of the county judge, the clerk of the district court of the county, and
one justice of the peace called in by them. The governor appoints each of
these officers with the power of removal and of filling vacancies. He has
the power to remove the justice of the peace at his mere caprice, at any time,
and fill his vacancy. If a justice of the peace should be called in and should
refuse to make such certificate as would be agreeable to him, his commission
would be in the governor's power if he chose to revoke it. Under these
circumstances it is not unnatural to suppose that he bad greatly the advan-
tage of his democratic opponents in conducting the election in the different
counties, and that he has a control over the elections and returns that no
Democrat can have.
The Governor's Power.
"The governor is also himself the candidate of his party for re-election to
the office of governor which he now holds, and if he assumes jurisdiction to
canvass the votes by opening all the returns for the purpose of determining
who are elected electors of president and vice-president, his decision would
naturally have an undue weight with the State canvassing board who are to
canvass the returns of his own election. The State canvassing board is also
composed of the appointees of the governor of the State. One of them voted
for Governor Tilden for president. The other two warmly supported Gov-
ernor Hayes, and are not only appointees of the executive of this State, but
the political and personal friends of the governor himself. They constitute
a majority of the canvassing board in the governor's election ; and if any
fraudulent or improper returns should be counted by him, by mistake or
otherwise, in determining who are. elected electors of president and vice-
president, it is scarcely to be presumed that his political friends on the State
canvassing board, who have great respect for his opinions, when they come
to canvass the governor's election, would overrule his decision in reference
to the returns upon which he had already passed. Again, it gives iiim the
advantage of opening all the returns ; and while he is canvassing the votes
for elector of president and vice-president, he can look into the question as
to how the vote stands between him and the democratic candidate for gov-
ernor ; while the latter would have no such access to that part of the returns
518 ARGUMENT IX FLORIDA.
and would not likely be permitted to inspect them. This would give the
governor an undue and unjust advantage in any matter connected with a
conte.st, as to the returns in any county, as he would know in advance the
exact state of the returns sent uj) to his office, while his opponent would not
have that knowledge. For these reasons we trust, even if your Honor should
consider the question a doubtful one as to the power of the governor, that
you will give the benefit of your doubt in favor of the State canvassing
board, where the Democrats have one representative and the Republicans
two, and refuse to permit the governor to assume a jurisdiction which it
seems to us it would be most unfair and unjust under the circumstances for
him to exercise.
Importance of a Fair Count.
"It is not impossible, it is even probable, that the result of the presidential
election may turn upon the vote of this State. The whole people of the
United States are therefore interested in a correct canvass of the vote of
the State. As already stated, the Democratic party have one member of the
canvassing board, the Kepublicans have two. It would seem to be nothing
but just and fair to the great Democratic party of the Union, which the
result shows is an overwhelming majority of the legal voters of the United
States, that they should not be deprived of at least one member of the board
that is to determine so important a result. If you should, upon a doubtful
construction of the law, (and we deny that there is room for a reasonable
doubt in favor of the governor's jurisdiction,) permit liim to set aside the
board and take upon himself the canvass of the returns, when he is known
to be the Republican candidate for governor, with the whole election
machinery of the State in his hands, it is not to be expected that such a
course would contribute to the cause of peace, or would aliaj' excitement or
suspicion of unfairness, when his decision in favor of his own candidate for
the presidency should be announced. The rights, and possibly the peace and
prosperity, of more than forty millions of people may hang upon the result ;
and we ask you, in the name of justice and fair dealing, to leave the canvass
in the hands of those where the law has placed it, and not to permit the
governor to usurp a jurisdiction which would at least cause an overwhelming
majority of the voters of the United States to believe, whether true or not,
that it was done for a definite object and with intent to produce a result
which could not be produced upon a fair count before the board legally
appointed to discharge that duty.
In Conclusion,
pern)it me to make a single suggestion in reference to the equity which these
complainants have in their favor, in their application for mandamus against
the State canvassing board. The law gives the board thirty-five days after
the election within which to make the canvass, unless the returns from the
several counties which held elections are sooner in. It is contended by the
ARGUMENT IN FLORIDA. 519
learned counsel for the defence that this is a discretion left with the board,
and that they can take till the last day, if they think proper, before they
commence the canvass; that is, they may wait till the last return is in, if
all should come in, before the end of the thirty-five days ; and if not, until
the last day of the thirty-five.
"Now, what are the facts in this case? Outrageous frauds are charged in
the elections in one or more of the counties, and their character is such that
the complainants who allege the fraud will have to produce evidence and
possibly send for witnesses to make good their allegation. The other side
will then most probably desire to be heard by evidence. Such an investi-
gation in tiie case of a single county might take the greater part of the week
if fairly and patiently heard. "Where there may be several such cases to
hear, a considerable length of time must be consumed by each, if there is a
fair investigation. What the complainants in this case desire is, that your
Honor will direct by mandamus that the board proceed with the canvass.
This will give them time to hear evidence, and deliberate and decide justly
in each ca>e where there is a contest about the fairness of the election. And
in case of any irregularities in the leturns, when they are opened, would
give time to send couriers to the counties from which such defective returns
might be sent up, and, if possible, have the proper correction made.
"But if they exercise their extreme discretion and do not commence till
the last day, or till within the last two or three days, it will amount to a
practical denial of justice, as it will be an impossibility to hear the evidence
and determine the questions of fraud that are to be raised within the time
that will then be allowed bylaw for the Board to sit. The refusal, therefore,
to commence the canvass in time to allow a fair investigation, is
A Practical Denial
of justice, and a great abuse of the discretion vested in the Board of Canvassers,
and, as 1 understand it, this court has the power and it is its duty to control
any person or officer over whom it has jurisdiction in the exercise of a dis-
cretion when that discretion is being abused, and the abuse of the discretion
without the intervention of the court will work irreparable mischief. Such
must be the case if the discretion of the Board is not controlled in this in-
stance, or if they do not consent without the control of your Honor to pro-
ceed with the canvass. If the Governor were to renounce all jurisdiction
over the subject matter, and the balance of the Returning Board will consent,
as the attorney-general has consented, to proceed with the canvass, giving
time for a full examination of the evidence, and a just and fair decision in
the case of each county where there is a contest, then there would be no rea-
son for the interposition of the order of your Honor in the premises. If they
sliould continue to refuse to proceed, and your Honor should not compel
them, there is, as we think, irreparable mischief resulting to the great detri-
ment of the whole American people."
520 PEESIDEXT OF COTTON EXPOSITION.
The attention of the whole country was directed to this
strange trial, in which the chief magistracy of the Re-
public pivoted upon the fair vote and the just count of
this little State of Florida ; and the central figure was
our strong clear-headed Georgian, who thus bore upon
his shoulders the cause of a nation.
Notwithstanding all the effort that was made by Gov-
ernor Brown and the other distino-uished gentlemen act-
ing together, and the clear demonstration of the right,
the two Republican members of the returning board to
whom the issue was referred, having a majority, outvoted
the single Democrat and gave the result in favor of the
Hayes electors while every one knew the Tilden electors
had won the election.
Through the long years of the decade from 1870 to
1880, Governor Brown pursued the even tenor of his
way, steadily correcting political misconception of his
course upon reconstruction, by his life of consistent purity
and integrity; and impressing upon the great public heart
the sincerity of his motives, and the courage of his con-
duct. More than this, there began to grow an all-pervad-
ing desire to utilize for the public service the phenomenal
abilities of this powerful statesman. The public appreci-
ation of him manifested itself in spontaneously calling
him to lead all great movements of a practical character.
He has been for years and is still the president of the
board of education of the city of Atlanta, that governs
the finest free school system in the South. He was
elected the first president of the International Cotton Ex-
position, and finally resigned the position on account of
pressure of other matters, to the regret of the Exposition
directors. In May, 1880, General John B. Gordon,
United States senator from Georgia, resigned his high
SENATOR GORDON'S RESIGNATION. 521
place to which he had just been re-elected for a second
term of six years. lie had been desiring to leave public
life with its meager emoluments, and push his private fort-
unes. He was tendered a valuable opening in a railroad
enterprise in Oregon, which he w\as compelled to accept
immediately. He resigned from the Senate therefore in
obedience to the necessity, though the session was in a
few weeks of its end. He privately notified Governor
Colquitt of his purpose, and had some correspondence by
letter and telegraph in regard to the matter, the object
of which on the part of Governor Colquitt was to dissuade
General Gordon from the resignation. This proved un-
availing, and Governor Colquitt gave an earnest reflection
to the choice of a proper person to appoint in his place.
In this delicate duty the Governor gave a thoughtful con-
sideration to the public interest and especially to the ad-
vancement of a correct public sentiment in connection
wdth the relations of the sections. Realizing that the
cause of constitutional o;overnment had suffered from the
prevailing misapprehensions North as to Southern opinion
affected by the late civil war. Governor Colquitt deemed
that an earnest and practical effort should be made by
Southern leaders and men in authority to give such a di-
rection to affairs as would restore the normal relations
between the once-divided sections.
This question was so closely connected with the mate-
rial prosperity of the South, with the very scheme of our
society, the security of property and the supremacy of cor-
rect political principles, that in the thoughtful judgment
of our wisest men it was necessary to subserve this end.
Governor Colquitt deemed that the appointment of such
a man as Governor Brown, who had differed wuth the pre-
vailing Southern policy on reconstruction, yet who was
522 ■ TENDERED THE SENATORSHIP.
in hearty accord with Southern sentiment no\\^, would be on
the line of a liberal policy that would have its beneficial
effect. Governor Brown was the most illustrious expo-
nent of tliat class of public men who bravely incurred
public odium for the public welfare ; and his appointment
by a representative Democratic Southern Administration
would be the most practical demonstration that the preju-
dices of sectional strife were alla3^ed.
Superadded to this statesmanlike consideration, it was
conceded that Governor Brown possessed pre-eminent
ability for the distinguished trust ; of all the men in the
State no one was more fitted by capacitj^, experience,
reputation, wealth and service for being United States
senator. Even his opponents admitted his superlative
qualifications for the place.
But this w^as not all. There were uro;ent reasons of
domestic State policy at that time for such an appoint-
ment. The supremacy and unity of the Democratic party
were seriously threatened by a growing spirit of independ-
entism, that had captured two of the white congressional
districts, and was menacing others. The hardy yeomanry
of the mountains were the men most disaffected, and they
w^ere friends to Governor Brown and to be conciliated by
his appointment.
Under these most potential inducements Governor Col-
quitt tendered the trust to Governor Brown. It was
necessary to have Georgia represented for the brief re-
mainder of the session. Governor Brown had a lengthy
conference with Governor Colquitt, in which the whole
matter was fully discussed, and the responsibility pressed
upon him, but he declined the trust, stating that he could
not accept it. Governor Colquitt urged him to consider it
and so the tender was held in abeyance. Governor
POLITICAL TURMOIL. 523
Brown went to Nashville, and while he was there, Gen-
eral Gordon's resig^nation ^\as made final, and Governor
Colquitt telegraphed him his appointment, and urgently
pressed him not to decline, and Governor Brown sent
back by telegraph his acceptance.
The publication of the matter was the signal for an
almost unparalleled public agitation. The enemies of the
three gentlemen, Governor Colquitt, Governor Brown and
Senator Gordon, seized promptly upon the incident to
make an assault upon the three that intended their politi-
cal annihilation. The most absurd and groundless charges
were made against them. In view of the facts, the storm
of crimination that raged was a literal tempest in a teapot.
It was the only time in Governor Colquitt's eventful ad-
ministration that he felt distrust of public opinion. The
howl w\as so furious and the misrepresentation so impla-
cable, that he feared for once that his opponents would
succeed in poisoning public sentiment. In the counties
of Pike and Muscogee public meetings were held and the
matter denounced. Ridiculous accusations flooded the
State of a trade in which it was boldly and distinctly
affirmed that General Gordon as the price of resigning
was to get the presidency of the State Road, for which
Governor Brown was to be made senator, while by this
bargain Governor Colquitt obtained the powerful support
of Governor Brown in his future struo-fj-les.
It would be impossible to conceive a sillier suspicion.
The very character of these gentlemen should have pro-
tected them from even an intimation that the}^ could be
capable of a bargain over a high public trust. The accu-
sation was falsified by every specification of the indict-
ment itself. General Gordon was not made president of
the State Road. Governor Brown was already a sup-
524 BROWN AS SENATOR.
porter of Governor Colquitt. Governor Colquitt tried
hard to induce General Gordon not to resign, and surprised
General Gordon as much as any one else by his choice-
Looking back at the storm in the cool light of after days,
the flurry has the aspect of the farcical, and men wonder
that such a fuss could be made for so lonsr a time on so
flimsy a basis. The incident illustrates what violent freaks
mark the current of politics.
Senator Brown was sworn in under his appointment
as United States senator on the 26th day of May, 1880,
and the adjournment of Congress took place on the 16th
of June. His senatorial service lasted three weeks only,
but he became in the short time an admitted leader
in the illustrious body, requiring no novitiate, but at
once overstepping all probation and experience in this
greatest deliberative assembly of the country, and assum-
ing a foremost place. It was a daring intellectual en-
deavor, but it demonstrated the marvellous adaptability
of his uncommon brain power. Ills long training in im-
portant public affairs, both as legislator and executive,
had fitted him for any arena of statesmanship. The way
in which he impressed himself upon national legislation
and the public thought in his three weeks of senatorial
duty was a conclusive vindication of Governor Colquitt's
wisdom in the appointment.
Senator Brown delivered three speeches in this time
that placed him among the recognized leaders of debate.
They were peculiarly seasonable efforts, and marked by
that blending of boldness and practicality that character-
ize the public utterances of this gentleman, and that
always command the popular consideration, making his
influence so potential.
The leading speech was made on the 12th of June,
A POWERFUL SPEECH. 525
1880, upon the Mexican pension bill. He wove into this
effort the most effective rebuke that has been given since
the war, to what has been popularly called the " bloody
shirt" business of ingeniously making war prejudices
against the South the weapon of political victory by the
Republican party. An amendment to exclude Confeder-
ate soldiers from Mexican or Indian war pensions afforded
the ready senator the opportunity Avliich he used with
masterly tact. Frequently before in debate our Southern
members in Congress had tried to quiet this troublesome
issue, but had as a general thing made matters worse
under the adroit retorts of the Republican debaters. But
Senator Brown met the issue successfully, and it was a rare
controversial triumph, as well as turning the tables in a
contest that had gone uniformly against us of the South.
Senator Brown argued against excluding the Southern
soldiers, and was subjected to a volley of the customary
and hitherto effective queries by such men as Senators
Conkling, Blaine, Kirkwood, Teller and Ingalls, who kept
the debate lively with thrusts about disunion and seces-
sion. Senator Brown responded with prompt felicity,
retorting in every case in such a manner as to silence his
questioner and leaving the advantage unanswerably with
him. He not only carried his point, but he demonstrated
his ability to cope in hand to hand discussion and van-
quish the strongest debaters of the Senate, and he took
immediate rank, both over the country and in the Senate,
among the leaders of the body, the most intellectual and
influential Senators of long experience. This and other
speeches of Senator Brown are given in full in the appen-
dix of this volume.
Another speech made at this session was in advocacy
of enlarging the appropriations to our Southern harbors.
526 THE CENSUS EREOR.
It is always a difficult thing to increase appropriations
over the report of the committee. His practical speech
on this subject obtained an additional $10,000 for Bruns-
wick. He made a strong effort to get §05,000 more for
Savannah, and nearly succeeded. Many senators of
both political parties, Mr. Blaine, Voorhees, Bayard,
Thurman, Davis and Vance commended in warm terms
the ability of his effort, while Senator Blaine put his
praise in a humorous expression that was heartily appre-
ciated for its witty good feeling — he had never heard
so fine a speech from so young a senator.
A very important service of his, so far as Georgia was
concerned, was the detection and defeat of a serious pro-
vision ift the census bill that if passed would have oper-
ated to deprive Georgia of the number of representatives
in Congress to which she was entitled upon the basis of
population. Georgia has a law that disqualifies a man
from voting who has not paid his taxes, and there were
thousands of such disqualified voters in the State when
the census was taken. The objectionable provision re-
quired the census enumerators to report such voters and
deduct them from the number of people that were to be
counted in apportioning representation in Congress.
Georgia under this unjust rule would have lost at least
one representative to which her inhabitants entitled her;
Governor Brown saw and stopped this injustice.
Senator Brown's phenomenal service in his little three
weeks' term conclusively established his fitness for the
great trust that had been unsolicitcdly tendered him by
Governor Colquitt. This appointment was made the
main issue in the gubernatorial campaign, and it can be
readily understood that Senator Brown threw himself
into this heated contest with all the fervor of his deter-
CONTEST FOR SENATOR. 527
mined nature, aided by all of his marvellous and expe-
rienced ^kill. It was understood to be Brown, Gordon
and Colquitt against the field. The issue was clearly
defined. There never was in our State politics a sharper
contest. Usually the convention settles conflicts in the
party. In this case the convention merely defined the
antagonism in the party organization the more clearly,
and the election was an aggressive continuation of the
undetermined struggle. In the convention it was any-
body to beat Colquitt, and in the election the opposition
rallied to Mr. Thomas N. Norwood. After the most
animated campaign in half a century, Governor Col-
quitt, aided by Senator Brown, was re-elected by almost
a two-thirds majority.
But in the gubernatorial campaign was blended an
issue vital to Senator Brown. His appointment as
United States Senator by Governor Colquitt unless rati-
fied by the people was an empty compliment, so far as
the public will was concerned. The same election that
decided who was to be governor was also to choose a
Legislature that had the selection of a successor to Sena-
tor Brown. His own election, therefore, as a sequence
to his appointment was at stake. There were peculiar
considerations involved in this contest. Years before
Senator Brown had met the only political defeat of his
life under circumstances of unparalleled public miscon-
ception of his motives and conduct, in a conflict for this
very trust. Certainly a less positive and stern-willed per-
son than he would have felt the inspiration of reversing
that defeat. But with his combative nature and intense
individuality the occasion was perhaps the supreme crisis
of his life, involving a concentration of all vital issues,
concerning alike the compensation of unmerited obloquy
528 GENERAL A. R. LAWTON.
and the redemption of his career from the most cruel in-
JListice a pubUc man ever suffered. His and Governor
Colquitt's opponents made his appointment and election
the main issue of the campaign. Senator Brown accepted
it joyfully, and bent his powerful energies and great
abilities to the contest. Had the issue not have been
tendered him, he would have offered it. He was re-
solved to have a crucial test of public sentiment upon
his course, under the light of reason and justice.
His opponent in this race was General Alexander R.
Lawton, a worthy rival in every respect, a gentleman of
unblemished character and ackowledged abilities. He
had held many important positions involving responsible
public trusts. He was State senator in 1859, president
of the State Democratic convention of 1860, colonel of
the first regiment of Georgia volunteers at the beginning
of the war, and conducted the seizure of Fort ^Lda^ki
under Governor Brown's orders, brigadier-general in the
Confederate army, quartermaster-general of the Confed-
erate Government, elector for Tilden and Hendricks and
president of the electoral college, member of the consti-
tutional convention of 1877, delegate to the National
Democratic convention in Cincinnati in 1880, and chair-
man of the Georgia delegation. In all of these trusts
he had sustained himself so as to carry the growing
confidence and respect of the people. He came from a
section of Georgia, too, that had strong claims for a sena-
tor on account of its wealth and intelligence. General
Lawton took part actively in the canvass for Governor,
making several strong speeches against Governor Col-
quitt's re-election. He was presented to the State in com-
plimentary terms as the candidate of Chatham county
for the United States Senate.
A nVOTAL OCCASIOX. 529
The election resulted in the overwhelming success of
Governor Colquitt, and the choice of a large majority of
members of the Le^-islature favorable to Governor Brown
for senator. Notwithstanding this fact, the canvass for
senator still continued. General Lawton wrote a letter
on the subject. Governor Brown, on the night before
the election, made a public address in De Gives' Opera
House. The building was packed from pit to dome with
ladies and gentlemen and the entire General Assembly.
The desire to hear this citizen was eager and univer.><al.
Hundreds were unable to s[;ain admission to the buildins;.
General Lawton himself stood in the gallery, listening to
his powerful opponent. It was such an occasion as occurs
in the lives of few men. It was the turning-point of a
rare career, the pivot of a life wdiose eventfulness has had
few parallels. It was less the great office that seemed in
his grasp, for he was too much used to great trusts, and
of too philosophical a temperament to experience undue
elation at the honor, than it was fehat at last the majestic
tribunal of public opinion, after a long and cruel miscon-
ception of his public course, was about to correct its erro-
neous verdict and redeem its injustice. He had suffered
as few do. There had been a crucifixion by public senti-
ment such as it is rare for any man to survive, much less
to conquer. He had lived to witness the complete re-
demption of his name and fame. There clustered around
his slender figure and calm face, with its gray beard that
attested the meridian of life past, memories vital with
momentous history ; and there loomed before him a vL-^ta
of illustrious public usefulness and private distinction,
hinging upon this pivotal occasion. Well miglit the
great popular heart throb in unison with the dramatic
suo:o:estions of this occurrence and this historic figure.
34
530 LEE AND JACKSON.
The people as well as he felt the lesson of the crisis, and
gave a hearty sympatliy in the wonderful triumph.
His speech was the best of his life. It w^as an effort
of supreme audacity and power. It was exceedingly
calm, philosophical, and argumentative, and yet it was
the most daring and absolute adhesion to the logic of his
political conduct. There was no trimming in it, no court-
ing favor, no apologies for the past, no concession to
prejudice or sentiment; but instead an unflinching justi-
fication of motive and act, a resolute grounding of him-
self, as it were, upon the integrity and wisdom of his past,
and a fearless enunciation of what he conceived to be
the liberal statesmanship for the Southern future. A
more timid man would have hesitated as a piece of politic
diplomacy at his declaration of views so far in advance
of public sentiment. The vote had yet to be taken, and
the voters were before him. He never faltered in the
candid statement of progressive ideas far beyond the
present. He planted himself upon his convictions, and
spoke the. truth as he saw it, regardless of consequences.
There were two striking episodes in his speech that
impressed the public with tremendous effect, and carried
a magical weight. When he read the letter from General
Robert E. Lee, written in 1867 contemporaneously with
his own utterances, counselling the same accjuiescence in
reconstruction that he had done, for the same reasons,
the effect upon the audience was indescribable. Such
an indorsement from such a source almost had the start-
. ling authority of a miracle. Again, at the conclusion of
his speech, a telegram w^as handed to him from General
Henry R. Jackson, bearing testimony to the fact that
before he took his unpopidar position upon reconstruc-
tion they had conversed upon the subject, and Governor
GOV. BROWN'S GREAT SPEECH OF 1880. 531
Brown had commimicated to him his disinterested motive
for the public good, and his voluntary acceptance of pop-
ular obloquy in the furtherance of his patriotic mission.
It was a brace of peerless witnesses that he thus pre-
sented in proof of his sincerity and honor. The dead and
the living in their most chivalrous types were offered in
evidence of an integrity and patriotism that had been so
harshly misjudged. The two blended a singularly poten-
tial vindication, — the great and revered Lee, of his pol-
icy ; the stainless and truthful Jackson, of his integrity.
No man dare doubt the wise patriotism of the one or the
crystal trutii of the other. These spontaneous and im-
pregnable confirmations of Governor Brown came and
wrought their uTCsistible spell of conviction, and de-
stroyed the last possibility of denial, setting forever at
rest the long existing and merciless shadow upon a good
man's fame and usefulness.
This extraordinary and powerful speech is given in
full, as it was delivered on the night of the fifteenth day
of November, 1880.
" Gen'lemen of the General Axsembli/, Ladies and Gentlemen: — I appear
before you as a candidate for the high office of United States senator from
our proud old Commonwealth. I had not intended to make any public
address pending ttiis canvass. But as my honorable opponent, General.
Lawton, has thought proper to appear before you and deliver a lengthy
address, the burden of which has been an assault upon my political character
and record, I trust you will agree with me that it is proper that I should be
heard in reply.
" When I learned that my opponent intended to address you, I naturally
came to the conclusion that he would lay down some platform, or announce
some great line of policy that he intended to pursue for the promotion of
the best interests of the State and of the whole country, if he should be
called to the high position to which he aspires. But I was greatly disap-
pointed when I read a synopsis of his speech, to find that he had nob thought
it necessary to favor us with his platform, or an outline of the policy in-
tended to be pursued by him. Instead of this, he turns back to the past,
532 GOV. BROWN'S GREAT SPEECH OF 1880.
and drags from tlieir <;rave the carcasses of the dead issues M-hich divided
and embittered our people in years gone by. And lie seeks your suffrage
not upon anything that he promises in the future. Indeed, I was forced to
the conclusion, after learning the points in his speech, that he sought to rise
by his assaults upon my record rather than upon his own merits.
"And just liere permit me to say, that, while I greatly regret the necessity
of recurring to these old, dead issues, I do not shrink from a comparison of
records with General Lawton. 1 am not afraid to discuss the i.ssues involved
in the reconstruction period, as I tiiiiik it is easy to demonstrate that the
advice I then gave, if it had been heeded, and the course I then took, if it
had been followed, would have been the best fur Georgia and the whole
South; still, I know there are honest differences of opinion upon this ques-
tion. And I know that able and patriotic statesmen took a different view
of it at the time; aud the questions were discussed earnestly, abl^^ and in
some instances bitterly. Much was said on each side that it were better it
had not been said. It was a time of passion and prejudice, when the worst
feelings of our nature were aroused and brought into active play. We had
just lost our cause. From being a proud and wealthy people, we had been
reduced to poverty. Every family had lost a fatlier, a brother, a husband,
or a friend. Our conquerors had dictated terms that seemed to us to be
hard and even unreasonable. And probably the most unpalatable part of
the whole batch of measures was the provision in the fourteenth constitu-
tional amendment that disfranchised our leaders from holding office. Labor-
ing under these provoking circumstances, and in the midst of this high
excitement, it was not strange that we had divisions, and that bitterness and
even vituperation were brought into the campaign. But this period of bit-
terness has passed ; the public mind has been quieted ; our passions have
subsided ; we have gone actively to work ; we have learned lessons of econ-
omy; we have entered again upon a state of prosperity ; and patriotic men
on both sides had hoped that the dead issues would remain buried out of
siglit, and that we should no longer be divided or disturbed by them. The
times now seem to require that all patriotic citizens of Georgia and the
South should stand together, hand in hand, and labor earnestly and faith-
fully to promote union, harmony, and the public good.
"What public service, then, could my honorable oi^ponent think he was
rendering to the country by tearing the scabs off the healing wounds and
seeking again to arouse the bitter prejudices and passions of twelve years
ago? Why did he not think X)i"oper to do this at any time within the last
five or six years, when he was not a candidate for United States senator?
Why did he wait until he made up his mind to enter the lists as a competi-
tor for this distinguished position before he opened his batteries upon those
who differed with him during the reconstruction period? Have we not had
enough bitterness? Is it for the pul)lic good that strife and wrangling
should continue perpetually? Cannot my opponent and those with whom
GOV. BEOWN'S GREAT SPEECH OF 1880. 533
he acts realize the fact that we live in a new era, tliat war has produced
ahnost a revolution in our labor system and lias engrafted new provisions on
the political system? Is it impossible for him to conform to the present
system under which we live, and to unite with those v.ho labor to make the
best out of it in future ?
""Why does my opponent arraign me for infidelity to Georgia and the
South because I differed with him and the school of politicians to which he
belongs on the reconstruction question and acted with the reconstruction
party? Is a man a traitor for not going with the party he has formerly
acted with, if that party abandon the platfoim it has always stood upon,
plants itself upon a new platform which his judgment tells him is impracti-
cable and impossible to be carried into execution?
"The platform of the Democratic party, so called in 1868, was not the
platform upon which that party stood prior to that time. Take General
Blair's Broadhead letter, which secured his nomination to the office of vice-
president, and the platform which to^iether declared the reconstruction acts
revolutionary, unconstitutional, null and void; and that it was the duty of
the President of the United States to so declare them, and to refuse to exe-
cute them, and to disband the governments established in the Southern
Stales under the reconstruction acts by force. This would have been another
revolution, ending in the further effusion of blood. There was no possible
chance of success on that platform. No principle of Democracy required me
to stand upon it. Democrats and the former opponents of Democracy divided
upon it according to their own judgment. I refused to stand upon it because
I knew it could result in no good, and must, if carried out to its legitimate
results, end in revolution and blood. Other patriotic statesjnen thought
they saw in it a mode of escape from the awkward dilemma in which we
were placed ; and with as much honesty of purpose as I claim for myself
they espoused the cause of opposition to it earnestly and actively. Were
they traitoj's to the old Democratic platform because they planted the party
upon a new platform that turned out not practicable ? They were honest ;
they were earnest ; they were patriotic. Was I a traitor, then, because I
refused to stand upon a platform that I believed would result in utter failure
and do harm ? Did I go over to the enemy, as my opponent charges, when
I acted with the party that sustained the reconstruction measures? If so,
the whole Democratic party and the whole people of the South have since
gone over to the enemy, with the exception of a few Bourbons who can never
accept the situation. When Messrs. Stepliens and Toombs and other great
Whig leaders of the South abandoned the Whig party, and aided in disband-
ing it, and came over to the old Democratic party, were they traitors because
they acted with the Democracy whom they had so long fought? Did we
treat them as such and refuse to give them office? And would it be consid-
ered a proper issue in this campaign, for me to take up their records, and
discuss what might appear to be seeming inconsistencies in their course in
534 GOV. BROWN'S GREAT SPEECH OF 1880.
that regard? What would it have to do with the present or the future wel-
fare of the country? Are we to pursue each otlier with relentless fury on
account of past differences and never unite for the public good? In 1860
SOUK- of us were ardent secessionists; otliers were Union men: shall we
declare perpetual war against one another because we differed twenty years
ago? Shall a Union man now say the secessionist was a traitor because he
left the Union ranks and went with the secessionists? Or shall a seces-
sionist say that a Union man is a traitor because he acted with the Union
party iind did not go with the secessionists? If an original Union man were
now a candidate for senator, would it be proper for me as an original seces-
sionist to make war upon him, and arraign him upon his record, and place
my claim to election to the United States senate upon the inconsistencies of
that record ? It would be as just as the war that my opponent makes
upon me.
" But he refers to my honored colleague in the Senate, and says that I said
Mr. Hill is the grandest orator in the Senate. I did say so, and I here
repeat it. But he says that Hill almost exhausted that oratory in his denun-
ciation of me during the reconstruction campaign. That may be true. Mr.
Hill is an ardent, earnest, patriotic man. He believed he was right. He
hoped that we might get rid of the reconstruction measures through the
agency of the Democratic party ; and though he had never been a Democrat
in his life, he came with the Democrats, and acted with them, and was one
of their ablest leaders in Georgia. Was he a traitor to the old Whig or
American party, because lie came over to the Democracy on that occasion,
and acted with tliein in opposition to the reconstruction measures? Clearly
not. But there is this striking difference between i\lr. Hill and my opponent:
Two years later Mr. Hill saw that the hopes of getting rid of the reconstruc-
tion measures, for which he had so earnestly and honestly labored, was delu-
sive; and he had the magnanimity and the honesty to come out and publish
his views to the world, and advise acquiescence and the recognition of the
rights of the colored race.
" And from that day to this Mr. Hill has advised peace and harmony. He
has never gone back and torn open the old wounds, nor souglit to do it, as
my Oj'ponent now seeks to do. He fought the reconstruction measures as
long as he saw any chance to succeed, and when there was no hope of suc-
cess he abandoned the platform, as did the Democratic party, and planted
himself u^wn the reconstruction measures. Was he a traitor to tlie Demo-
cratic party, when, in 1S7<>, he advised the acceptance of the reconstruction
measures and the recognition of the rights of tiie colored race? And must
he iu future be arraigned for this patriotic act? If not, how was I a traitor
for doing the same thing two years sooner?
" If the attack made upon me by my opponent is just, then he is the proper
subj 'ct of arraignment. ^Ir. Hill is able to recognize an accomplished fact,
and he is a man of mould large enough to advise the people to bury the
GOV. BROWK'S GEEAT SPEECH OF 1880. 535
bitterness of the past, and to act in harmony upon the reconstruction plat-
form in future. In this he is ten years ahead of General Lawton.
"In his letter of 1870, December 8th, two years before the Democratic
party had abandoned the platform of 1868, Mr. Hill says : ' I have been
driven to the conclusion that these three amendments are in fact, and will be
held in law, fixed principles of the Constitution, as binding upon the States
and people as the original provisions of that instrument It is the duty
of every good citizen to abide by and obey the Constitution and laws as they
exist, precisely as if he had co-operated in establishing and enacting them.'
Again he says: 'I respectfully suggest that the time has arrived when duty
does not require nor interest seek a continuance of the divisions on the prin-
ciples and events which have led to our present condition.'
"And in his speech in Atlanta, in 1872, he says: 'I confess before this
audience to-night, that while my heart has ever been right, while I have ever
advocated that which I believed to be true at the time, yet in the mid.-t of
party contest I have often indulged in personal allusions and personal depre-
ciations, which I regret and would gladly recall.' Again he says, in refer-
ence to the notes on the situation: 'There are some personal allusions of a
very severe character which I regret and would recall.' Again he adds: 'I
am free to say that I am in favor of universal political amnesty, state and
federal.' How striking the contrast between these utterances of the great
orator, and the intolerant course of my opponent!
"When did my honorable opponent give this good advice? For twelve
years has he nursed his wrath, and still abates nothing of his animosity
against those who differ with him.
"But my opponent thinks we should not have accepted so early, while the
graves of our dead heroes were yet fresh, Wiiat length of time was it neces-
sary to give for the grass to spread over the graves of our lamented heroes
who fell in our glorious cause, before we could accept the reconstruction
measures without disrespect to them ?
"As the Democracy has been planted upon the reconstruction platform
ever since 1872, my opponent must admit that it-was no disrespect to their
memories to accept those measures in 1872. Why did he not tell us* the
exact time between 1868 and 1872 when it ceased to be disrespectful to them
for us to acquiesce in the inevitable? His views and mine of the reverence
and respect we owe to their memories may be widely different. I feel that
that respect and that reverence are due them from us while we live, and
from our posterity after us. I had two brothers who fell during that
struggle, one of them while leading his regiment in the charge upon a Union
battery almost in sight of wliere I now stand.
"Shall I cease to respect their memories, or do I dishonor them because I
accejit the terms dictated by our conqueror after they have fallen ? General
Lawton may think that we could cease to pay reverence to the memories of
our heroes after 1872. I say that respect and that reverence ,should be per-
536 GOV. BROWN'S GREAT SPEECH OF 1880.
petiial in the future. If so, taking his premises and carrying them out to
their logical sequence, we must forever fight the reconstruction measures or
we will dishonor them.
" But I was not alone in the advice I gave or the opinion I entertained as
to the propriety of accepting the reconstruction measures. What was that
advice? It was substantially that the conquerors had dictated the terms,
and that we were obliged to accept them; that the conventions mentioned
in the Sherman bill must be held; that our people were placed in a position
where they had no power whatever to control that question. And I advised
them to acquiesce ; to go to the polls and vote for the best men who were
eligible; that they might go to the convention and make us the best consti-
tution we could get, as we might be obliged to live under it for years to
come. I also recommended acquiescence in the action of the conv'ention of
our State, and advised our people against divisions and to a prompt accept-
ance of the terms dictated by our conqueror. This was the only way to get
representation back into Congress and to lift the hand of the conqueror from
us. All remember very well that this was the substance of my advice.
" Now I desire to read here a letter from a distinguished gentleman, to
show that others whose opinions were entitled to respect entertained the
same views and gave like advice. As I consider the letter an important one,
I beg your careful attention while I read it. It is as follows :
" ^ My dear Major: I have read with the attention the subject demanded
the article enclosed in your letter of the 23d ult. 1 think there can be no
doubt in the minds of those who reflect, that conventions must be held in
the Southern States under the Sherman bill, that the people are placed in a
position where no choice in the matter is left them, and it is the duty of all
who may be entitled to vote to attend the polls and endeavor to elect the
best available men to represent them and act for the interests of their States.
The division of the people into parties is greatly to be reprehended, and
ought to be avoided by the willingness on the part of every one to yield
minor points, in order to secure those which are essential to the general
welfare. Wisdom dictates that the decision of the conventions should be
cheerfully submitted to by the citizens of eacl) State, who should unite in
carrying out its decrees in good faith and kind feeling.' "
[.\t this point some one in the audience cried out, " That's Joe Brown's
talk! " The speaker replied, " It is very much like it; just the same in sub-
stance, though I did not write it." He then resumed the reading of the
letter, as follows :]
" ' As I am relieved from the necessity of directing how to act, I think it
is fair to leave to those who have to bear the responsibility the decision of
the questions involved, without embarrassing them witli the o[)inions of
those who do not feel this responsibility. Under these circumstances, and
for reasons wliich I am sure you will understand, I have great reluctance to
obtrude my opinions upon the public, and must therefore request that you
GOV. BROWN'S GREAT SPEECH OF 1880. 537
will not publish my letter, which has been written out of my kind regard for
yourself.'
"Tliis letter," said the speaker, "is dated Lexington, Va., April 3, 1867,
less than one month after the date of my letter advising acquiescence in the
reconstruction measures. It was dictated by the brain and penned by the
hand of that immortal hero, Robert E. Lee! I hold the original now in my
hand, in the handwriting of the old hero himself."
[At this point the demonstrations of applause were overwhelming, and
bouquets of flowers were thrown from every part of the audience to the
stage and showered down upon Governor Brown with a profusion that we
have seldom witnessed. After bowing and returning his thanks to the ladies,
he continued as follows :]
" I have not given the name of the gentleman to whom the letter is
addressed, as he does not at present desire his name made public. He is an
able man ; was a gallant Confederate officer, who did valiant service under
the very eye of General Lee himself, and had the confidence of that great
man to the fullest extent. As General Lee was a military chieftain then
retired, and had not figured as a statesman, the reasons are very obvious
why he should not desire to give advice to the public, unless it was asked-
for in some authoritative way. It was but natural, therefore, that he should
have requested that the letter be not published. But as more than thirteen
years have passed since the letter was written, and as time has demonstrated
the wisdom of the advice given by General Lee, and he has long since de-
parted this life, certainly no injustice can be done to his memory by giving
to the public the wise and noble sentiments then expressed by liim. Another
reason why it should be published is, that it shows that the old hero was of
good judg-MENT." [This brought down the house with great applause.]
" But my opponent says that the State of Georgia, by resisting my policy
and the reconstruction measures, got out from under the heel of the op-
pressor sooner than South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana who took my
advice. This is a very extraordinary statement. "VViiat was my advice? It
was the same given by General Lee : that the white people of Georgia and
the South accept the reconstruction measures at once; that they all go to
the ballot-box and vote for delegates to the convention which was to make
the Constitution under which they and their children must live; and that
they try to get as good a Constitution as possible, and get their representa-
tives back into Congress in both branches at the earliest day possible. What
was the advice of General Lawton on that occasion? It was that the white
people of the South fold their arms in dignified silence and refuse to take
any part whatever in the election to be held for members of the convention
to form a Constitution under which they must live for years to come, but to
give that up to the negroes, the carpet-baggers, and the scalawags. South
Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana adopted his advice. The white people
folded their arms in great dignity, and said, ' We will touch not, taste not,
538 GOV. BROWN'S GREAT SPEECH OF 1880.
handle not the unclean thing.' They refused to go to the polls, and they
gave up their conventions entirely into the hands of the classes above men-
tioned. What was the result ? The negroes and the carpet-baggers framed
their constitutions; tied them hand and foot; filled their lejiislative halls
with majorities of ignorant colored men, and crowded their jnry boxes with
ignorance; and the white people labored under this curse till the beginning
of the year 1877. For nearl}' ten years were they passing through this ter-
rible ordeal. Not so in Georgia. It was estimated at the time that some
thirty thousand white men in Georgia took the advice given by those of us
who accepted the reconstruction measures, and went to the polls aud voted
for good men as delegates to the convention. We sent to the convention the
lamented Judge Parrott, who presided over it, and who was a most valuable
power in securing a good Constitution. The people also elected as members
of that convention, Dr. Miller, Colonel Trammell, Judge McKay, James D.
Waddell, Colonel Thomas P. Saffold, of Morgan ; Albert Foster, the honored
father of the honorable representative from Morgan county in this assembly;
Madison Bell, of Banks; Judge Biijby, of Coweta, now United States district
attorney; Colonel Marler, since solicitor-general of the we.-tern circuit; Mr.
Dews, of Baker, who has since been a member of the Legislature ; Mr. Field,
of Murray, who has filled the same place; Mr. Ford, of Floyd; Dr. Fo^ter,
of Paulding: ^Ir. McWhorter, of Gieen ; the Hon. David Irwin, of Cobb;
the lion. A. W. Ilolcomb, of ]\Iilton ; the Hon. Wesley Shropshire, of Chat-
tooga; the Hon. John II. Flytin, of this city; the Hon. Amos T. Akerman.
who, though a Northern man, has spent the most of his life in Georgia, and
who also rendered valuable services in the convention. Other native white
men were elected who had devoted their lives to the best interests of Georgia.
These men inside, with the assistance of some of us outside, notwithstanding
the great majority of radical men in the convention, secured for the people
of Georgia a constitution under which they were soon restored to the line
of prosperity. The intelligence of Georgia soon h.ad control of the Legis-
lature, her courts, and her juries. The world knows the result. AV'e were
through with the reconstruction period much sooner than any one of the
States above mentioned, who rejected my advice and took the advice of my
opponent. And to-day, while the credit of those States in the market is
unfortunately at a low point, the credit of Georgia stands as high in the
market as any State's in the Union. She floats without difficulty a four per
cent, bond when she needs money to meet her engagements.
"On the contrary, if South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana had followed
my advice in 18G8, and sent such of their white leaders as were not disfran-
chised as delegates to their conventions, they would have secured constitu-
tions which would have restored theiu to Democratic rule within four years.
And in 1876, instead of having radical returning boards at their command
to count out ^Ir. Tilden, who was legally elected president, they would have
elected Democratic electors, and there would have been no question about
GOV. BROWN'S GREAT SPEECH OF 1880. 539
the right of the Democratic candklate to his seat in the presidential chair;
and we would now have passed through four years of Detnocratic rule,
■whereas we are just entering upon four more years of Republican rule.
Judge ye, whether the advice of my opponent as taken by these States was
better than mine.
"But my opponent says, in substance, if T could not agree with him and
those with wliom he acted in 18GS, I slionld not liave acted with tlie recon-
struction party; but I should have folded my arms in silence and waited
until they had made the experiment. Xo, 1 could not have done this prop-
erly. The people of Georgia had honored me; they had raised me from an
humble position and placed me at the helm of state. They had stood by me
during all the dark periods through which we had passed. I had reached a
point, at the end of the struggle, where I was out of oflice, and I was a pri-
vate citizen only; and if I had been simply selfish in my view.-j, I might
have folded my arms and stood ^till and given no advice, and retained my
popularity. But I did not think I couM do this and act in good faith. All
that I WHS, and all that I am, I owe to Georgia; and when her citizens
called on me for advice in that critical period, though but a private citizen,
I felt tliat it was my bounden duty to give it. I knew very well the respon-
sibility which I incurred. I thought it was possible they might follow my
advice and save themselves great trouble and great suffering. But I feared
also at tlie time that the probabilities were that passion and prejudice were
running too high for reason to resume her swav. Hence I stated to confi-
denti d friends my motives in taking the position I did, that it was to try
to save Georgia from very great suffering, into which I feared she wa^ about
to be precipitated; and that, if our people failed to talie my advice, from
having been one of the most popular men in the Stnte, I should become one
of the most unpopular from the Potomac to the Rio Grande. AVith this
great hazard fully in view, forgetful of self-interest, I raised the note of
warning, and gave them honestly my opinion as to the course it was best
for them to pursue. My opponent folded his arms at the time and did
nothing, and advised inaction. I leave it to }OU to say whether his censure
is well founded or gratuitous.
"But my opponent in substance assumes the further position, that if we
had refused to submit to the reconstruction measures, and had all stood out
to the la-^t, foreign powers might have intervened under international law
and saved us from this bitter pill. Now, with all due deference, it does seem
to me that this idea is perfectly Utopian. AVhen we were at the high tide of
our success after each important victory, we had men abroad to importune
foreign powers to recognize us even as belligerents, and they declined to do
so because their treaty obligations to the United States did not permit them
to recognize us as Of-cupying any other relation than that of rebels to the
government of the United States; and whatever sympathy they might have
felt for us, they decliued to recognize us as entitled even to belligerent rights.
540 GOV. BKOWN'S GREAT SPEECH OF 1880.
If then foreign powers would take no notice of us during the struggle when
we were flushed with victory, was it reasonable to suppose after we had
surrendered, and there was no hanging, no slaughter, no bloodshed, our
president imprisoned l)ut his life not imperilled, that they would then come
in and intermeddle in the affairs of the United States, and say, 'You shall
not dictate teruis here that the South think are hard and unreasonable; we
will interfere with our sword and stop it'V What sane man can for a
moment believe that there was even the remotest probability of foreign
intervention to save us from the evils of reconstruction ? It does seem to
me that my honorable opponent is hard run for a pretext upon which to
base his objections to me, when he arraigns me for supporting the recon-
struction measures on the ground that we might have looked for foreign
intervention if we had held out. I do not at least think lie would Venture to
offer such an argument before the country from the high arena of the Senate
of the United States, to which he aspires.
"But he makes another grave charge, that while I was an ardent original
secessionist and did all I could to advance the cause of secession, I took
issue during the war with President Davis on certain questions where I
thought there were great principles involved. Doubtless he refers to the
controversy between me and President Davis on conscription. We went
into the contest, as I understood it, to maintain Stale sovereignty and
slavery; and I think I demonstrated during that controversy that the Con-
script Act was unconstitutional and subversive of the very principles of
State sovereignty which lay at the foundation of our political fabric. That
discussion, however, was on questions of constitutional law and principle,
and it was not permitted to embarrass Mr. Davis practically. I threw no
obstacles in the way of the execution of the Conscript Acts by his officers in
Georgia, where they showed any respect to law or the rights of the State.
He never made a requisition upon me daring the whole period of the war for
troops of the class furnished by the other States, that I did not promptly
respond with a larger number than he asked for.
"And when Sherman's army invaded the soil of Georgia, I called out even
the officers of the State and organized them into regiments and battalions
and turned them over to that glorious old hero, Joseph E. Johnston, wiio was in
command of the Confederate armies, where they did efficient and valuable
service, recognized by him in flattering terms. I carried the number up to
nearly ten thousand of the class which was not subject to conscription, and
for which the President had no right to call, and which was not furnished
by the other States. After General Johnston had been unwisely removed,
I continued them under General Hood. And when the secretary of war of
the Confederate States made requisition upon me for them — that part of
them report to General Hood and part of tliem to the commandant at
Cliarleston while they were in the trenches at Atlanta defending this city,
I refused to send them away or to turn them over on Confederate requisition.
GOV. BROWN'S GREAT SPEECH OF 1880. 541
They belonged to the State : they were a class of our citizens including her
officers and the old men up to 55 and the boys down to 16 that other States
did not send to the field and that the President had no right under any
law of Congress to demand of me. Nor did he demand that class by requisi-
tion made upon the governor of any other State in the Confederacy. How
then did I obstruct the cause of the Confederacy ? I gave it all the troops
it called for ; all it was entitled to, and when our own State was invaded 1 gave
it nearly ten thousand of a class that it had no right under its own laws to
call for. Ask General Joseph E. Johnston whether I was untrue to the Con-
federacy. He was in command at the time, and he will tell you that I did
all that any governor could have done under the circumstances to aid him.
" He is reported to have said that I did more for the cause than all the
other governors of the Confederacy combined.
" General Lawton seems to forget, however, while attacking me on this
point, that he attacks the great commoner, Mr. Stephens, who was vice-presi-
dent of the Confederate States, and General Toombs, the ablest advocate of
his election to the Senate, who fully co-operated with me in my controversy
with the Confederate States authorities on this question, and sustained me
on every point. We acted in perfect harmony. Were Stephens and
Toombs untrue to the Confederate cause? The same evidence that would
convict me of this charge by my opponent, convicts them also. Perhaps
this argument proves a little too much for him.
" But it would seem reasonable to suppose that the Georgians in the army
who met the enemy in the field of battle, and who endured all the hardships
of the camp, were the best judges of whether their governor in his treat-
ment to them and in his responses to the calls of the Confederacy had been
faithful. In 1863 after my controversy with President Davis, when I was
a candidate for the fourth time for the office of governor, the citizens of
Georgia within legal age, who were in the army, were authorized to vote
wherever they might be. As you will remember, the Hon. Joshua Hill,
formerly a Union man, and the Hon. Timothy Furlow, an ardent secession-
ist, were both put in the field against me. As the Constitution required
that the successful candidate should have a majority over all the other can-
didates, it was thought I would be defeated in this way, and the election
thrown into the General Assembly. And the home vote at the time would
have come near defeating me. The stay-at-home men, those owning fifteen
negroes, who were at home to look after their plantations, and those in the
other pursuits of life that remained at home, voted for me by a small major-
ity. But when the army vote came in and the ballot of the men who bore
the musket in the froiit of the enemy was heard from, they placed me over
8000 ahead of both my competitors. Did the army deem my course as untrue
to the Confederacy? Who were better judges of the propriety of it than
the soldiers who endured the hardships of the camp and the field ?
" Time will not permit me to say more in reference to my course
542 GOV. BEOWK'S GREAT SPEECH OF 1880.
during tlie war. I claim that notliing I did during that period
conlliots iu any way witli my duty or present position as a Dem-
ocrat. I never voted anything but a Democratic ticket iu tny life prior to
1863. Upon the old Democratic platform 1 always stood, and to its princi-
ples I was always true. Iu 1868 the Democratic party did not stand upon
its former platform, and it certainly did not stand upon its present platform.
In 186S it declared the reconstruction measures to be revolutionary, uncon-
stitutional, null and void, for it nominated Blair upon his Broadhead letter.
During that period I refused to stand upon that platform. I knew that
General Grant,\vho had been the successful leader of the Union armies and had
received the sword of that immortal hero, General Lee, was entitldl accord-
ing to usage to the presidency, and he would certainly get it. lie had been
sent by President Johnson to the South -to report upon our condition, and
had done all he could to mitigate the excitement, and reported as favorably
as he could. He was evidently disposed to turn the warm side to the South,
and I thought it was our best policy to agree with the adversary quickly,
and take up the hero and sup[)ort him, making no issue with him. This
would have given us representation in Congress immediately and placed us
upon a much higher level. And if we had acted wisely, all the probabilities
are tliat General Grant, true to his original political faith, might at the
next race have accepted the nomination from the Democracy of the Union,
as he had been up to that time an original Democrat. JNIy opponent is
reported to have said in his speech that I was the only man who knew that.
It has been on more than one occasion published that General Grant him-
self said so, and it has never been denied by any one. lie never cast any
but a Democratic vote prior to the time he went into the presidential chair.
And I think my opponent is probably the only man in the country, of his
intelligence, who did not know it. Not only was General Grant, who re-
ceived Lee's sW'Ord, in favor of conciliation up to that time, but it is now
a well known fact that General Lee favored acceptance.
" The Democrats made the experiment on the platform of 1868, and made
a great failure. They saw then that it was impossible to stand longer upon
that platform. And in 1872 they came squarely upon the reconstruction plat-
form upon which I had stood in 18G8, when I supported Grant, and they nomi-
nated Horace Greeley as their standard bearer. Contrast the records of
Grant and Greeley and say who made the biggest leap from Democracy — I
in voting for Grant in 1838, or my opponent wlien he voted for Greeley in
1872. But as Greeley was placed upon the reconstruction platform where
1 had stood, and to which the inevitable pointed as the future policy of
the country, I stood still upon the platform and voted for Greeley. I did
not abandon it because the Democracy came to it. I did not refuse to vote
for Greeley, objectionable as he was, for he was nominated by the party of
my preference, who stood upon the platform where I stood. And from that
day to this I have constantly acted with the Democratic party.
GOV. BROWN'S GEEAT SPEECH OF 1880. 543
"You may examine all my utterances in reference to the reconstruction
measures, and you will find that the tenor of them all was that I accepted
in 18GS the reconstruction measures because there was no way to get rid of
them, not because I approved of them, but I admitted the hardship. I took
them as matter of necessity only, and not as mutter of choice. I felt
no attachment to them. I had no devotion for them. But in 1876, when
the Democratic convention of the Union met in St. Louis and nominated
Tilden, having found that the mistake that they had made in 1868 had so
prejudiced the country against tliem tliat it was still denied that they had
acquiesced in the reconstruction measures in good faith, they determined to
make the acquiescence strong enough that it could no longer be questioned,
and they there affirmed their devotion to tiie Constitution with the amend-
ments. The fact is, I was never devoted to them, and there I could nut
heartily stand upon the Democratic platform, but as my conqueror dictated
them, and I accepted his terms in good faitli, I had accepted them ; I had
sworn to support them, and I intend in goodfaith to do so.
"But, as you all know, the result of that campaign was that Mr. Tilden,
who was elected President, was counted out by the returning boards m the
States of Florida and Louisiana, where the advice of my honorable opponent
had prevailed during the period of reconstruction. When it was found that
an effort would be made to count us out, Mr. Tilden did not question my
Democracy, but through a friend from his residence he telegraphed
and requested that I go to Florida to aid him in securing a fair count. I
went there and stayed and labored faithfully for more than a month, at
my own expense, to secure such count, part of the time upon a sick bed
where I had to have books brought to my bedside and prepare arguments
with my secretary sitting by my bed. We failed there because a majority
of the board were radicals, and no showing that could be made could con-
trol or influence them. I did not have the control of matters there. That
was assumed by a gentleman from New York, who claimed to be the special
agent of Mr. Tilden. My opponent was also requested to go to Florida,
but if I recollect correctly he stayed but a day or two. I believe it was said
be had private business which called him home.
" But soon afterwards Congress appointed a committee of investigation
to go and look further into the matter and take testimony. T had returned
home, and was lying upon a sick bed, unable to do anything. And at this
point Mr. Hewitt, the chairman of the executive committee of the Demo-
cratic party of the United States, telegraphed me and requested me to go to
Florida and take control of our case there. I would cheerfully have gone
back and done so, but my bodily infirmity and suffering rendered it impossible
at the time. It I am not to be relied on as a Democrat and cannot be trusted,
and my opponent is a better Democrat than I am, why did not Mr. Tilden
and Mr. Hewitt invite General Lawton to go there and take charge of the
cause ?
544 GOV. BROWN'S GREAT SPEECH OF 1880.
"But let us come down a little further. During the present year the
Democratic convention of the Union met at Cincinnati and nominated
that grand and gallant soldier, Wintield S. Hancock, and placed him upon
a platform fully recognizing the reconstruction acts. In his letter of accept-
ance, lie too lays down the position distinctly that ' the 18th, 14th and Loth
amendments to the Constitution of the United States, embodying the results
of the war for the Union are inviolable. If called to the presidency, I
should deem it my duty to resist with all my power any attempt to impair
or evade the full force and effect of the Constitution, which, in every article,
section and amendment, is the supreme law of the land.' Toombs says
they are still null and void, and he speaks for General Lawton and is now
grooming him for his race. [Laughter and applause.] Hancock says they
embody the results of the war, and are the supreme law of the land.
General Lee says : ' Wisdom also dictates that the decision of the conventions
should be cheerfully submitted to by the citizens of each State, who should
unite in carrying out its decrees in good faith and kind feeling.' Which wdl
you follow, Toombs and Lawton, or Lee and Hancock? [Applause.]
" Both the Democracy and their great leader then plant themselves fully
and firmly upon the Constitutional amendments, which were the substance
of the i-ecanstruction acts. Daring the recent campaign the chairman of
the Democratic committee of the Union, Senator Barnum, wrote and urged
me to go to Indiana to aid in the campaign for Hancock and English.
Under the circumstances 1 could not do so, which I very much regretted.
If I am not a Democrat to be trusted and would not in the Senate be a true
exponent of the principles of the Democratic party why did he not ask
General Lawton, my opponent, to go ?
"I have not a sentiment or an instinct that is not in accord with the
best interests of Georgia and of the country ; and I shall be one of the last
men to furl the banner of the Democratic party and lay it away. My
family and my property and all that is dear to me are in Georgia. The
bones of my ancestors rest here, and I expect to be buried in her soil and
leave my posterity upon it. Why then should I betray her ? AVhen have
lever been untrue to her interests? I shall always pay my devotions at
her shrine ; I shall always be ready to maintain her interests and to stand
by her honor, come what may.
'" From what I have already stated I think it unnecessary that I should
further argue the point, that the Democratic party stands to-day fairly and
squarely upon the reconstruction platform ; that it vies with the Re[)ublican
party in the expression of its devotion to that platform, and to the consti-
tutional amendments upon which it is based. Which was the worse, for
me to be untrue to the Democratic party in 18G8 when it neither stood up-
on its old platform nor upon its present platform, or for my opponent to be
untrue to it now, as would seem manifest from his speech before you?
What was the staple of that speech? It was an arraignment of me for ac-
GOV. BROWN'S GREAT SPEECH OF 1880. 545
cepting the reconstruction acts and standing upon that platform and defend-
ing acquiescence in them in 18tJ8. lie now arraigns me bitterly for having
done so. Does it not raise a fair inference, therefore, that his lieait is
not now right upon these measures, and in his inmost bosom that he is not
a friend to them and does not fully acquiesce? What, think you, would
have been the effect of the speech delivered here the other night, if he had
gone to Indiana and delivered it there during the campaign? What will
now be the effect of it upon the fortunes of the Democratic party north ? The
Republicans will seize it everywhere, and say that (ieneral Lavvton admits
that Governor Brown has ability, that he is mentally qualiKed to represent
Georgia in the Senate, but he denounces him as untrustworthy because he
supported the reconstruction measures in 18138, and acted with the recon-
struction party then. And if you elect him upon that speech, to the Senate,
will it not be an acknowledgment of what has been so often charged by
the Republicans, that the acceptance of the reconstruction measures by the
Democracy of the South is insincere and is all a sham and a cheat?
" After the 4th of March next the President will be Republican, the House
of Representatives will be controlled by the Republicans, and the Senate will
most probably be a tie, when you count on the uncertainty of one or two mem-
bers who have heretofore been Democrats, but were not elected as Democrats.
Suppose you elect General Lawton to the Senate, and he enters the body un-
der these circumstances, how much influence will he have, either with the
Republicans of the Senate or with the Xorthern Democrats? Will not the
latter say : ' You are untrue to the very principles upon which we stand
here. You are a recruit to the brigade of Southern brigadiers here, and
the worst fire-eater among them. Y'ou denounce and would ostracise those
who twelve years ago consented to stand where we now stand.' What could
my opponent do for Georgia under these circumstances? I leave wise legis-
lators who have to make the selection to judge,
"But I have already occupied too much time in reply to the assaults made
upon me by my opponent on account of reconstruction. 1 think it time that is-
sue were buried. I think it is time that all Georgians should imitate the exam-
ple of Senator Hill, and lay those things behind them ; bury them deep in
the grave, and look forward; and harmonize and fraternize for the future ad-
vancement of the State. Let the old Whig and Democratic issues, the seces-
sion and Union issues, and the reconstruction issues and all the past bitter-
ness and difference of opinion be buried; and let us all unite and move
forward harmoniously in the new era as citizens of the new South for the
promotion of the good of the whole country.
" My opponent lays down the rule that it is tlie duty of the Legislature to
select a man for the Senate who represents the sentiment of Georgia, and
that seems to be his platform — the sentiment of Georgia! What is senti-
ment? The dictionary defines it to be: First, sentimentality, feeling, emo-
tion; second, thought, notion, opinion, judgment. Suppose we take the lat-
35
546 GOV. BROWN'S GREAT SPEECH OF J880.
ter part of the definition, and my opponent's meaning is that you should se-
lect a man wlio represents the o[iinions of Georgia. I accept the issue. I
confess I may not be a proper rt-preseiitative of a certain ?entimentality that
there is in this State. There is a class of" people in this State whose lathers
a generation or two back possessed either wealth or distinction. They or
their descendants were large slave holders, and they were usually classed as
tlie aristocracy of the South. They are sometimes termed l>y the common
people, ' the kid-glove aristocracy.' Either fortunatt-ly or unfortunately for
me I never belonged to that class. I was born of humbler parentage. I had
to work my own way in the world. I had to rise, if I rose at all, by my own
exertions. 1 was brought up among the working class; rose from the mass
ot the people. They took me by tlie hand and sustained me, because thej'
believed I was true to tliem and was one of them. And they have never for-
saken me in any instance where the popular voice could be heard. The aris-
tocracy that I refer to above, and I do it with great deference, for I have
great respect for them, never believed that anyone not born of wealthy par-
entage should participate in the affairs of government; that belongs, accord-
ing to their idea, to the privileged class. And when I rose up to some posi-
tion, and the people determined to put me higher, and to place the helm of
state in my hands, some of these would-be rulers doubtless regarded me as
an illegitimate in the political family of the State; they probably have few
sentiments in common with me. They have led lives of leisure and elegance,
indulging in festivities, discussing fine wines, wearing fine apparel, and keep-
ing company with their own class. I have had to deal with the realities of
life. I have had to labor all my life — first to obtain position, and then to do
my duty in position. 1 have nut had time, therefore, to cultivate the sort of
sensibility or sentiment entertained by this class, and I confess very candidly
that I am not a proper representative of that sentiment. If the people of
Georgia tLink that a man should be sent to the Senate to represent that sen-
timent of the old ruling class, as they assume to be, and not the sentiment
of the great mass of the people of the State, then I admit that my honorable
opponent is a fit representative.
" JJnt let us return to the definition. One of the meanings of the word is,
opinion, judgment. Do I represent the opinion of the people of Georgia? I
think that question has lately been decided and a verdict rendered in an un-
questionable form. Governor Colquitt appointed me to fill the vacancy in
the Senate of the United States, lie was arraigned for that act by my oppo-
nent and those who acted with him all over Georgia. I will not go into the
facts in reference to the nomination or the campaign, further than to say
that when my opponent concluded to run for the Senate he took the field in
opposition to Governor Colquitt, and the great leading issue that he made
against him was that he had appointed me to the Senate. While he admitted
my ability, he was reported to have as>ailed nie bitterly, though he has t-ince
said that the reports did him injustice ; and he epent a great deal of every
GOV. BROWN'S GREAT SPEECH OF 1880. 547
speech made by him in an attempt to convince the people that the act was a
great mistake. In a word, he made that the prominent issue ; and in every
county, Ibelieve, except Chatham, where he delivered a speecli and took that
position, arraigning Governor Colquitt's administration and arraigning me,
the people responded by giving an overwhelming majority to Colquitt. I
claim that I have a right to participate in that verdict. Not only did my
opponent make the issue, but General Toouibs, tlie ablest intellect among
those who oppose me, al^^o made it distinctly in his .speeches. He denied
that tliere was anything in the other charges made by the Norwood party
against Governor Colquitt, but placed the opposition to Colquitt distinctly
and alone upon the ground that he appointed me senator. Then the ablest
man of the opposition in Georgia, and my opponent himself, botli made the
issue, distinct, clear and unequivocal, as to whether I was the proper man to
go to the Senate. And with the attack made upon Governor Colquitt for my
appointment and the issue fairly rendered, the people responded in our be-
half, by a majority of nearly fifty-five thousand. Gener-d Lawton made the
point on me that I was not the proper man to go to the Senate ; he anaigned
the governor for ai)pointing me a member of the Senate. The people replied
and expressed their sentiment. In other words they gave their opinion, their
judgment; and they said by this enormous majority, that the general was
mistaken ; that I and not he represented tiie popular sentiment of Georgia.
The voters of General Toombs's own county decided in favor of Governor Col-
quitt and myself by over 700 majority.
" But they may say that the people did not take up the issue tendered by
General Lawton and General Toombs, and that Governor Colquitt's majority
is no just index as to what my majority would have been. I do not think
any candid man, however, who hears me will contend for this position. But
suppose my opponent plants himself upon it, then let us make a little com-
parison of the relative votes given to me and Governor Colquitt in a few
counties where the issue was made. In the county of Fulton, which was
claimed largely for Norwood prior to the election, a ticket composed of the
present sitting members was run, favoring my election ; in other words a
Brown ticket. Another ticket was run opposed to my election, part of its
members very bitterly opposed, headed by an able lawyer and eloquent legis-
lator of this city. The issue was made up between the two tickets. Gover-
nor Colquitt carried the county by 230 majority I believe, and the lowest man
on the Brown ticket carried it by more than a thousand majority over Col-
onel Iloge, the highest man on the other ticket. Take the adjoining county
of Cobb. There my old and honored friend. General Ilansell, and Mr. Orr,
his colleague, ran openly as the Brown ticket. Their opponents were known
as the anti-Brown ticket. Governor Colquitt carried the county by a little
over 30 majority; Ilansell and Orr carried it by over 7U0 majority. Take
the next county adjoining to that, Bartow, and there were, as I understand
it, five candidates for the Legislature ; four of them were Brown men. One,
648 GOV. BROWN'S GREAT SPEECH OF 1880.
an old member of the Legislature, was anti-Brown. The county went over
600 niMJority for Norwood, and two of the Brown candidates were elected to
the Legi-latiire. Take tlie county of Coweta. It was agreed there ti;at the
senatorial contest should not come in to disturb the election of ineniber.-J, and
they would run but one ticket. And they nominated the sitting- members,
Wilkerson and Post, with the understanding that the voters would be at^ked
to indorse their tickets "Brown " or "anti-Brown, ' and if a majority were
in favor of Brown, the representatives were to vote for me ; if a majority
were opposed, they were to vote against me. Wliat was the result? About
1,400 votes were indorsed, and of this number Brown got over 1,200, or more
than six to one. I could mention other instances, but let these suffice.
Doubtless there are portions of the State where Governor Colquitt was
stronger than I was. But I do not think, in view of all these facts, that any-
one will say that I was indorsed by a majority of lass than fifty thousand in
the State.
" Defining sentiment to mean opinion, and it seems to me that the opinion
of the people of Georgia has been emphatically exjiressed in my lavor and
against my opponent, and if tlie representatives of the people here carry out
the will of the people, I shall certainly be returned to the Senate.
"I accept tlie issue, then, that you elect asenator who is in accord with the
sentiment ot the great mass of the people of Georgia, not in accord with the
sentiment of that small class who feel tiiat they liave a divine ri<:ht to rule
and who never expect to accept in good faith the reconstruction measures.
The people of Georgia realize the fact that the world moves; that we have
gone through a great revolution ; that there lias been a great change; and
they have moved and intend to move with it; and we shall have to move
along and leave that small class of excellent people who have such tender
sensibilities to their misfortunes. We do this with regret, but we have to
bury the dead issues and to go forward with the living future.
"If I shall be elected to the Senate, I shall go there to represent no sickly
sentimentality, I shall go there to represent the interests, the prosperity and
the honor of Georgia. I shall go there to do all in my power to buiy dead
issues, and it will not be my purpose to stand there as a fossil of the past
ages, bewailing our losses and making no effurt to retrieve our fortunes.
But I shall try to stand there as a living man of the present, taking advan-
tage of whatever opportunities may offer, to build up the waste places and
restore prosperity and happiness to our people.
" If you honor me with a seat in the Senate, I shiill do all I can to advance
the great agricultural interests of this State and of the whole country. Con-
gress owes it to that class upon whom rests the responsibility of producing all
that makes us a great people and upon which every other profession depends,
to lend them every aid in its power. And I should not hesitate to vnte for
any appropriations that might be necessary to advance the iniprovement of
agriculture, and to develop the agricultural resources of the country. I
GOV. BROWN'S GREAT SPEECH OF 1880. 549
ebonkl also feel it my duty to do anything in my power to encourage the de-
velojinifntof the great mineral wealth of this State and of the country. You
have, imbedded in your valleys, hills and mountains, inexhaustible supplies
of iron and coal and other minerals, that in future will make Georgia one of
the greatest States in tlie Union. Instead of lying still and doing nothing, I
shall be ready to aid in any way I can in putting measuies on foot for the
development of these great interests. It is also our duty to do everything we
can, cons^istently with the rights of the people, to build up the manufactur-
ing interest of the country. We have in the South the great staple upou
whicli the exchanges of the country are conducted, and that moves the wheels
of commerce. It has been found that the price of the cotton crop can be
doubled and trebled here by manufacturing. ^Ye have in future no negroes
to buy; we are making money; we shall want investments. Let us do all
we can, then, to build up the manufacturing interests in Georgia, and thus
greatly augment her wealth by giving employment to her citizens and fur-
nishing markets for their productions, and sending off those productions in a
shape to be worth several times the amount that they are in the raw state
when first produced.
"I met, while in Washington, a number of very intelligent persons who
made anxious inquiries in reference to our manufacturing interests here, and
as to the profits made on investments. I told them we had advantages which
they did not possess North. They asked in what they consisted, I said your
streams are frozen up in Xew England part of every winter so as to be a se-
rious obstruction to the business of manufacturing. In the South, there is
never a day in the year that the wheels of every factory cannot run. There
are no obstructions by ice. [Applause.]
" Another point I made was that on account of the very cold weather during
the northern winters, the cotton did not spin as well as it did in our cliu:ate.
They s^id : 'Why, how do you know?' I replied that when I was a boy,
when there were wet days, and I could not work out of doors on the farm,
my mother taught me to spin ; and probably no girl in the country could then
beat me spinning; [Great laughter and applause.] and I always found the
threads did not draw as well of a cold, bleak day, as they did in ndld weather.
[Renewed laughter and applause.] They admitted that they had to keep the
rooms at a temperature in winter that sometimes impaired the health of their
operatives.
*' A;:ain, I stated that we had the advantage in cheap labor, and that the raw
material is produced in the South in the fields around the factories them-
selves. They have to pay freight on their cotton from the South to New
England, and then spin it and send it back to us and other markets. All
this we t-ave. [Applause.] We have comparatively no freight to pay; but
send off the productions of our looms many times as valuable as the raw ma-
terial at a great deal less cost. [Apjilause.] When I told them of the prof-
its made by our Augusta mills, and the high price that the stock bore, some
550 GOV. BROWN'S GREAT SPEECH OF 1880.
geutleinen of capital said they desired to look further into the matter, as they
thought of investing in that line, and tliat tliey would look through Georgia
before they made an investment. [Applause.]
" 'J'hey inquired whether capital invested here would be protected. I told
them that a citizen from any part of the Union could bring his money here
and invest with perfect impunity, if they M'ould act tlie part of peaceable,
law-abiding men and not try to stir up strife between the races. [Renewed
applause ] I think there is good reason for the belief tiiat within a few years
a great deal of northern capital will be brought South to be invested in man-
ufacturing. [Applause.]
" As an aid in the development of these great interests, I shall do all I can
to secure our part of the appropriation for the improvement of our harbors
and the cleaning out of our rivers so as to make them navigable ; and to
make those that cannot be navigated with large boats fit for rafting pur-
poses. You have in the lower half of the State a timber interest that is
worth many millions of dollars. Small appropriations judiciously expended
would clean out the rivers of that section and put them in condition that
you can raft down them all the year. Then by running railways and tram-
waj's o>it into the timber lands these millions of wealth can be sent to the
markets of the world and the gold brought back in return. I shall do all I
can to aid in that. I know some are opposed to all internal improvements
by the general government, but it is an unquestionable fact that there will
be from seven to ten millions of dollars a year expended for this purpose.
And as we pay into the treasury our part of the money necessary to the bur-
dens of government, I shall feel it my duty to do all I can in the distribu-
tion to get our share of it in return. I think justice and wise statesmanship
require this. Xot only so, but I shall do everything possible to aid in the
development of our harbors all along the coast, taking first the harbor of our
beautiful city of Savannah. I pointed out in a speech delivered in the Senate
the advantages of that haibor and shall never relax my efforts for its im-
provement for I think great interests depend upon it. The other harbors
around our coast and the inland channels should have the earnest attention
of the repre^ntatives from Georgia in both Houses of Congress. I think I
can do more good by seeking to develop these great interests while I remain
in the Senate, if I am .senator, than I would by sitting -there and prepaiing
an eloquent speech, with rounded periods, and delivering it once in six months,
upon the sentimentality of the South and the Bourbonism of the past.
"Tliere is another great question that the statesman of the South has no
right to disregard. I refer to the great question of popular education. Dis-
gui.<e it as you may, the New England State.s, by their broad and liberal
educational system, the splendid endowments they have given to their uni-
versities, and their admirable common school .system, have educated their
people up to a point which has. given them great advantage in the contest
for power and place in this government. Travel, if you please, over the
GOV. BROWN'S GREAT SPEECH OF 1880. 551
broad plains of the mighty West and you will find in most instances that
the lawyer, the physician, the doctor of divinity, the member of Congress,
the schoolmaster, the literary man, the newspaper man, and the most promi-
nent citizens in their cities were educated in New England. They have
imbil)ed Xew Enghmd ideas and through their influence Xew England has
dictated laws to the continent. If we would elevate the people of the South
to the true position of power and influence to which they are entitled, we
must educate the masses of our people and develop the bright intellect in
the humbler circles of life that is now left uncultivated. There is in many
a cabin in the mountains or in the wire-grass of Georgia, a bright-eyed,
brilliant little boy who has a diamond concealed in his breast, and neither
he nor his parents know it. Send him to school long enough to rub the
rough from .the diamond and it will begin to sparkle. Afford him advan-
tages to go a little further and it will be seen to be still more brilliant, and
he will soon reach the point where you can neither keep him down nor limit
his thirst for more knowledge.
" Under the Prussian system the talent of the masses is carefully watched ;
and in whatever department the natural bent seems to run the brilliant intel-
lect is cultivated until its training has passed the stages of the common
Bchools and the universities; and the man of grand intellect who?e natural
disposition runs in any particular line or art is made a master of tliat art.
Thus the State gets the benefit of all the great intellect of the country devel-
OY)ed by proper training. Let us imitate the example of New England and
Prussia and our people will soon reach a point where it will be impossible to
keep them in the background. They will move forward to the front, and we
shall develop the great resources of the South by native intellect, aided by
culture and science.
" But our condition is peculiar. During the period of slavery reasons of
policy forbid the education of the colored race. They are now not only set
free, but they are made citizens with all the legal rights of citizens; and
being citizens it is our duty to make of them the best citizens in our power.
Much to their credit be it said, they have shown a laudable ambition for the
education of their children. We were a rich people when we went into the
war, but we had to maintain our own armies for four years out of our own
substance, for which we cannot now show a dollar. True, we got the bonds
of the States and of the Confederacy during the time for our property. But
they were repudiated at the end of the war and are now nullities. AVe not
only had to submit to this great drain upon our resources, but we lost billions
ot dollars of gold that we had invested in slaves. And then at the end of
the war we had to return to our place in the Union and resume our propor-
tion of the burdens of government, and we have to pay our proportion of the
war tax of the government. The slaves were set free by the Union as a
matter of necessity. They are now ca~t upon us as fi-ee men, a large mass of
ignorance. Is it just or generous for the Union to expect us in this impover-
552 GOV. BROWN'S GREAT SPEECH OF 1880.
islied conditioM to take upon ourselves the entire burden of their education?
I ihiiilv no just man, North or South, who has thoroughly investigated this
question can so contend. What then shall be done in this state of things?
My opinion is that the Govenunent of the Union sliould assume the burden
of aiding in the education of tlie people. And I tliink the most permantnt
fund and the best fund tliat coidd be appropriated to that.purpiose would be
the incomes from the sales of the public lands. Let them be kept separate
in the treasury as an educational fund and let them be annually distrihuted
among all the states in the Union in proportion to the illiteracy tliat exists
in each. I would not confine the money to the education of the colored race,
but ap))ly it alike to the education of white and colored. As we have the
four millions of colored people among us, we of course have a great deal
more illiteracy than there is in New England and we would get more of the
money. But I believe the eiilii;htened people of New England, seeing the
condition in which we are placed by the abolition of slavery and the results
of the war, would generally acquiesce in a measure giving us this advantage
until we have reached a period when the intelligence of the different sections
is placed nearer upon an equal basis. I cannot speak authoritatively upon
this question. I do not know what view Congress may take of it; but I do
not hesitate to say, if I should have the honor of sitting there, that it will
afford me great pleasure to supj^ort a measure looking to this great result.
" I know this, however, does not comport with the old idea of the old
regime of the South. The slavery system, while in existence, was incompat-
ible with this view. But we must remember that we are not now living
under that systetn. As already stated, we live in a new era, and the new
South must ailopt new ideas, must wake up to new energy, and must stand
upon the brojid platform of equal rights and equal justice to all. We must
conform to the constiiution and laws as they now exist ; and we must see
that every citizen, whatever may be his race, color, or previous condition,
has every legal right to which he is entitled. Legal equality must be strictly
and impartially enforced; social equality must be left to take care of itself
in the South as it is left in every other land. I am for a free ballot and a
fair count, and for the execution of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments in
honest good faith. It has been charged that I have probably promised some
colored men, in case of Garfield's election, to try to secure positions for them.
I do not know what influence I may have with the new administration, lb
would be my j)urpose to deal justly and liberally with it. While I sacrifice
no princii)le of democracy I shall make no unnecessary assault upon the
administration. I prefer, as far as principle will admit, to act in harmony
with it; and if I find Democrats cannot get the patronage in our State, as
the colored race constitutes a large majority of the Kepublican l>arty of the
State, I believe they would be entitled to be re[)resented in the distribution
of the offices. Some of them are now qualified to fill certain positions, and if
the p irty with which they act is in power, they would seem to be entitled to
GOV. BEOWN'S GREAT SPEECH OF 1880. 553
soinetliing. Senator Hill, in 1870. said tliat he would prefer an honest negro
to a dish'juest white man. Doubtless there are some white men in (xeorgia
no more qualified for position and no more honest than some of the better
class of the colored race. "We had just as well malie up our minds to meet
the issue fairly. The reconstruction measure must be executed in good faith,
and the legal rights of every citizen must be resi^ected and protected without
regnrd to race, color, or previous condition of servitude. I do nut wi-h,
while I am a candidate, to mislead the representatives of the people, and I
theiefore state my position on this question distinctly and frankly in advance
of the election which is to tnke phice to-morrow. I understand this to be
exactly the doctrine contained in the Democratic platform and in the letter
of acceptance of General Hancock. We have made these pledges to the
country and should carry them out in strict good faith.
" But I must notice the sectional argument made by my opponent. He
takes the position, as I understand it, tliat I should not be elected to the
Senate because I live in Atlanta, and tiiat he, or some one else should be
elected from his section, because he lives in i5avannah. I confrss I do nob
see what the particular place of a man's residence has to do with liis capacity
to serve his constituents or the constituency of his State in the Senate.
When I took my seat in the Senate I did not feel that I was there as the
representative of Atlanta, or any other locality in Georgia, but as the repre-
sentative of the whole State. The first act I did there was to move to restore
the ten thou-and dollars which the House of Representatives had incorpor-
ated in the Harbor and River Biii for the harbor of Brunswick, which had
been stricken out by the committee on commerce in the Senate. After a
considerable contest, in which my colleai^ue also aided, the ten thousand dol-
lars was restored to the Bill and Brunswick gets the money. In other words,
I had been there but a short time, in the language of General Toombs, my
distinguished opponent, before I scented the treasury; and I ran my hand in
up to the elbow and pulled out ten thousand dollars and gave it to the Biuns-
wick harbor. I accept the taunt and do not complain of the position in
which it places me. True to the same instinct, I next moved to amend the
River and Harbor Bill by increasing the appropriation for the Harbor of
Savannah from i$65,000 to )^10n,0(iO. I wanted to put my arm in there and
pull out $3."i,<)0f) for Savannah. But the conmiittee said they could not per-
mit their report to be overruled in so many particulars, and they seemed to
feel that it was especially necessary, as the session was drawing to a close,
that tlie bill should pass as nearly as possible like it came from the commit-
tee. Many of you have seen what I said and did there on that occasion. I
did all in my power to serve Savannah ; and I think I have sowed the seeds
which will yet produce the harvest for her.
"The next act I did was to introduce a bill in behalf of a railroad that is
building from Waycross through to Jacksonville, Florida, which crosses the
St. Mary's river below Traver's Hill. That river being a navigable stream,
554 GOV. BROWN'S GREAT SPEECH OF 1880.
though only a hundred feet wide, it was necessary to get the consent of Con-
gress before a permanent bridge could be put across it, unless it be a draw-
bridge for boats to go through. And as tiie real head of navig;ition is below
the point and the boats do not come there, and tlie river is used only for
rafting purposes, to put a i)ier in the middle of it so as to put in a draw-
bridge, as would have been required of the railroad company, would have
obstructed it so that the timber could not have been rafted down it. My
bill was to iiuthorize the comi>any to build a permanent bridge there without
the draw, and without the obstruction in the way of the timber interest.
And I got it passed through the Senate. And the honorable representative
from the first will no doubt get it passed through the Ilou^e when he goes
back there in December. I was not very sectional, therei'oie, in the stiirt I
made in tlie Senate. 'My first act was in favor of Brunswick, my second in
favor of Savannah, and my third in favor of Charlton county, in the ex-
treme southeastern corner of the State. I did more for lower Georgia than
I did for upper Georgia while I was there. ^^ hetlier General Lawton would
have doiie more for that section had he been tliere, I must leave for you to
judge.
" But I must contend, if you will permit me to treat this subject with a
little levity, that General Lawton has, it seems to me, recognized the pro-
priety of the senators coming from the same locality. My fiiend Iliil never
could get into Congress until he moved into the ninth district, the upj>er
portion of the State. He was then elected representative and irom that to
the Senate. And it may yet be questionable wlietlier iiis residence is in
Athens or Atlanta. I sprang from the liinth district. In other words I am
from Gaddistown, in Union county, where they said I plowed the bull.
[Tumultuous laughter and applause.] The county represented here by my
friend Sena or Curtis, near the line of the district represented by my old
friend Senator Duggar. And I am not ashamed of the place whence I
sprang. My young friend Speer was never so distinguished till he went to
the ninth district. It is a good place to look for congressmen in. There
they soon elected him to Congress and have lately returned him by
over '1.000 majority. [Great opplause] Finding therefore tliat I
sprang from the iiintli distiict, and that ^Mr. Hill went into the ninth district
and got into the Senate, when senatorial aspirations seized my friend. Gen-
eral Lawton, he at once established a summer residence at Mount Airy, up
in the ninth district. [Prolonged laughter and applause.] He must not
complain, therefore, that two of us already in position come from the ninth
district, wiieu he, too, goes there as soon as he determines to seek position.
[Laughter.] I do not think the geographical objection is well taken. If I
should be elected, gentlemen, I .shall guard with equal care and vigilance
the interests of every county and every section of Georgia.
"In defending myself against the assaults made by my opponent, I have
not arraigned him. I think we have too much personal bitterness in our
GOV. BROWN'S GREAT SPEECH OF 1880. 555
campaipfns. It seems to me the people are rletermined to put a quietus up-
on it. Probably there was never a campaign in Georgia where tli^re was
80 much vituperation and abuse, as there was against Governor Colquitt in
the late campaign, and the people rose up and said 'stop it.' And tliey
spoke in thunder tones rounded off by a majority of fifty-five thousand
■when they again said, ' It shall stop I ' I do not believe, gentlemen, that
yon approve of the mode adopted by my opponent to seek his advancement
by assailing my political record, in a matter of twelve years ago in the dead
past, where it turns out that the mountain indeed did not go to him, but he
had to go to the mountain. I mi^ht go liack and examine the official lecord
of General Lawton in the mo>t responsible place he ever held. lie made
a gallant soldier during the earlier periods of the war. He was then made
quartermaster-general of the Confederate States. He represented very well
the sentiment of the ruling class to which I have referred. No doubt he
acted honestly and uprightly. But I think I have seldom heard as much
complaint of the management of any department as I heard during that
period of the management of the quartermaster department. If my
friend was not at fault he seems to have been singularly unfortunate in the
selection of his agents. But I do not propose to make an assault there. I
simply say that any administrat'on of mine will compare favorably with
his administration of the quartermaster's department of the Confederate
States of America.
"He has arraigned me for accepting a fee to prosecute the Columbus
prisoners. I have not time nor have you patience to go over the discussion
on that question. It ha-? been of late so fully discussed, and my motives
have been so fully defined before the country and sustained by such unques-
tionable evidence, that 1 do deem it necessary to recur further to it. I was
the best friend of the unfortunate de'endants in that unfortunate struggle.
I might in reply inquire where my opponent has stood in contests of this
character where popular rights were at stake. As has been shown within
the last two or three days by a writer in The Constitution — and it was
not at my suggestion — the very idea of taxing the railroads of Georgia
originated with me while I was in the executive office. It is only my idea
put into effect. I vetoed charters on all occasions when there was any
attempt to limit the taxing power and guarded it carefully, and called at-
tention to the fact that it would bt^come necessary to exercise it. When
the time did come to carry out my policy there, and legislation was had on
the subject, General Lawton accepted a fee and appeared as the champion
of the largest corporation \n Georgia in resisting the law to tax that grand
corporation. At a later peiiod the Legislature thought it necessary to ap-
point a railroad commission to intervene between the people and the railroads
in regulating freight and transportation. The contest arose between the
people of southwest Georgia and the great corporation of the State in refer-
ence to that question. And General Lawton accepted a fee and appeared
556 GOV. BROWN'S GREAT SPEECH OF 1880.
in behalf of the corporation against what the people beheved to be tlieir
rights. On all tliese great popular questions, therefore, he has thrown him-
self in the breach as the cliampion of corporations against what is claimed to
be the rights of the people. When he arraigns me for accepting a fee in a
case that I would have had a right to appear in, if it had even been with
the view as counsel to conduct the case to conviction if guilt was established,
he should remember where he has appeared against the popular current,
and what was regarded as the popular interest, and as representing monop-
oly against jjopular rights. In other words, those who live in glass-houses
ouglit not to throw stones.
"It is charged by my opponent, that in a speech delivered at the city hall
in Atlanta in 1868, I threatened my own race with the torch, and attempted
to incite the negroes to acts of bloodshed and devastation. This charge
does me great injustice. And just here it is proper that I should state
the surroundings under which the speech was delivered. Public notice was
given that I should address the people on that occasion. On the morning
before the meeting I was warned at different times and by different friends
not to go upon the grounds, as it was said there was a band leagued together
for my assassination if I attempted to speak to the crowd on tliat day. I re-
plied that I had promised to speak, and it was so advertised, and I should
be there; that I should do all I could to avoid a collision, but if it must
come I should take the consequences. An intimate friend and relative of
mine received a like warning, and was urged not to permit me to go there.
He replied that he knew T would go. Hearing of the threats, a few friends
of mine accompanied me to the stand and remained there, armed for an
emergency, wliile 1 delivered the speech. The friend who received that
warning, and who sat with his hand upon his pistol while I delivered the
speech, is in this audience to-night. Others who were present in like
capacity are still in life. It is well known that at that time tlieve were
occasional assassinations growing out of the bitterness engendered by
political divisions. Speaking under the warning that my life was in danger
every moment, and knowing that the effect of an attack would be a general
outbreak, I warned both races against intolerance or an attempt to in-
terfere with the relative rights of each other, I warned the white race that
they could not get rid of negro suffrage by an appeal to violence ; tliat four
millions of people enfranchised by revolution could not be disfranchised
without bloodshed. I warned tliem as friends to be cautious on both sides
and not to put their lives in jeopardy and their homes and families in peril
And I especially warned my own race of the extreme danger to them, in
case of a collision, and referred to the fact that the colored people Iiad but
little except their lives to hazard, but that the white people had their lives
and their property, and their hou-es. And I cautioned them to be care-
ful how tliey excited discord and bloodshed. The warning was given alike
to both races under circumstances of extreme peril. The advice was good
GOV. BROWN'S GEEAT SPEECH OF 1880. 557
that both sides keep the peace. Each felt that life was in danger if a blow-
was stricken. And as the threat of assassination came from my race, and
they had most to lose V)y striking it, the caution probably had its influence
in preventing bloodshed, which, if begun, might have ended in fearful de-
struction of life and property.
" These are the circumstances under which the speech was made and the
substantial facts. 1 aui not responsible for the newspaper reports at the
time any more than my opponent was responsible for the recent inaccurate
reports of Ids speeches made by the papers who favored his election ; and
he has disclaimed the correctness of the reports made by papers friendly to
him. You have the substantial facts, however, before you. I feel that the
warning was timely ; that the circumstances required it, and that good
results followed it; and I am not afraid of an adverse verdict of an enlight-
ened public when the facts are known.
" What interest had I in inciting insurrection and bloodshed and the
application of the torch to houses and other property? Had I not as much
at stake as almost any other citizen in Atlanta? If the blow had been
str.cken probably my life would have been taken and my property first de-
stroyed. You will all give me credit for intelligence enough to understand
this; and I am quite sure you will not doubt that under the circumstances
my earnest desire was so to shape my course and my advice to both races
as to secure peace and harmony and not to incite bloodshed and the use of
the torch. My enemies, a little hard run in their search for sometliing in
the past out of which to make capital, have brought this matter to the
attention of the public. I meet it with a fair, honest statement of facts,
and am ready to abide the verdict of an enlightened public. Would any
of vou under similar trying circumstances have done less than caution
both races to keep the peace, under the fear of penalties to each resulting from
an outbreak? I am satisfied you would not, and I here dismiss tliis charge.
'* General Toombs, in his speech, is reported to have said that the Seymour
platform declared the reconstruction acts to be unconstitutional, null and void,
and that this is true yet ; and that he does not believe five hundred honest
men voted for them. Over thirty thousand white men in Georgia voted to
accept them, whose honesty of purpose would not suffer in comparison
with that of General Toombs. Note the remark : he declares that it is true
yet that the reconstruction acts are unconstitutional, null and void. P>ery one
of vou has sworn to support them. Did you understand you were swearing
to support a nullity, an unconstitutional or void act? The trouble with
the general is that he fails to learn wisdom by experience. He has always
had a turn for pulling down, and was never successful in building up
anything. He is a good phrase-maker ; and he has much to say about the
protection of the public treasury. He has managed to get into a number
of lawsuits as counsel for the State in railroad and other cases, where he
scented the treasury, and ran his arm deep into it and drew out large
558 GOV. BROWN'S GREAT SPEECH OF 1880.
amounts, or rather he retained -large amounts collected as fees, which he
dill not pay into the treasury. Under the higli sounding phrase of 'serving
the Coniuioiiwealtli,' his 'old mother,' [Laughter] he has lined his pockets
with lucrative fees. I believe we have never learned how much he has re-
tained as fees from tlie amounts collected, and how much he has drawn
directly from the treasury. It is said the amount of his fees and CDnunis-
sions langes somewhere between twenty-tive and fifty thousand dollars. If
I aui misinformed he can easily correct it, by giving the public a full state-
ment olall ihe lees, commissions or money, which he has received or retained on
account of services rendered in cases where he professes he represented the
State. I make no charge against General Toombs [Laughter and ap[ilau.se],
but he has so much to say about the dishonesty of better people, that the
citizens of Georgia would no doubt be glad to have a statement of the
amount he has retained in these cases.
"But I would ask, which do you prefer? I put my hand into the treas-
ury and draw out ten thousand dollars for Brunswick, for our own people,
while General Toombs, tlie volunteer for the Commonwealth in civil cases,
is said to have put his hand into the treasury of our people and drawn out
much more than that amount for his own pocket.
" He turns a few paragraphs upon the Bullock administration. Gov-
ernor Bullock was brought back to the State, after he had taken up his
residence in New York; and he was placed upon trial before the court, and
he was acquitted by a jury of his country of every charge they brought
against him in court. Why did not this faithful guardian of the rights
of the people appear and make good his charges that Bullock had stolen
money from the State ? Why did he not prosecute to conviction Foster
Bloilgett and those that he terms thieves under his administration? Several
of them were put upon trial but we hear little of the verdicts of conviction.
Was it because there were no large per cents, to be retained as fees, as in
the case of collections in railroad cases, that the eloquence of the great
volunteer for the Commonwealth was not heard in the prosecution? Why
did he permit these criminals to go unwhipped of justice in the courts, if
they were as guilty as he says they were? ^
" The course taken by General Toombs since the war is very well illus-
trated by the story of the old gentleman in one of the counties between here
and the Savannah river. He and his old lady started in the bug<ry to visit
some friends and on the way had to cross the river. In going down into
the flat one of the straps broke and the buggy ran upon the heels of the
horse, and he kicked himself loose and ran back home. The good old lady,
who believed in the policy of reconstructing, gathered up the fragments of
the harness and started tor home. The old man refused to go, but sat down
on the river bank and commenced cursing. The old lady, however, carried
the [lieces home, got an awl and an 'end' as they call it, and began re[>air-
ing the harness. And finding the horse at home she told the servant to
GOV. BROWN'S GREAT SPEECH OF 1880. 559
take him and go down to the river and meet the old man and bring him
home. After an absence of an liour or so tlie servant returned, and she
asked, ' Where is theohl man?' And he said, ' lie wouldn't come.' Then she
said, ' What is lie doing?' The servant said, 'lie is still sittin' down on
the river bank, cussiu'.' [Tumultuous laughter and applause.]
" So in this case we have liad a war brou-ht on n.ore by the agency of Gen-
eral Toombs than of any other man in the South. It turned out differently
from what he and others of us expected. We have been unfortunate. We have
broken the harne.<s, the horse has kicked out, and the question has iiiisen
what is to be done? The mass of our people have concluded it w.is better
to gather up the fragment?^, reconstruct tlie harness and the vehicle, and
prepare to move forward again, and do all we can to restore our lo.->t pros-
perity. We have appealed to General Toombs, who led us into the destruction,
to aid us in the reconstruction, but the old man refused to do anything to
aid in restoring prosperity, and sat down on the river bank and commenced
cursing.
" We were obliged to move forward, but, like the good old lady, we sent
the horse back for him, and he still refuses to come ; and the report is
that he is still sitting on the river bank a cus>in'. And as tlie country must
move forward, we are obliged to leave him there and let him cuss. [Pro-
longed laughter and applause.]
"I beg your pardon, ladies and gentlemen, for having detained you so
long. I could scarcely have done justice to the subject and to my defence
and said less. I feel that I have been true to you, true to my State, true to
the whole country. I told you the truth when it was exctedini;ly unpalat-
aVde. I did not shrink from the respons^ibility, and I have passed through
a hard ordeal. I knew my vindication was only a question of time, and I
have never doubted that truth would prevail. And 1 thank God that
'Truth crushed to earth shall rise again,
Tlie eternal years of God are hers;
But error, wounded, writhes in pain,
And dies among his worshippers!' "
During the delivery of the speech Governor Brown
was frequently and enthusiastically applauded. At the
conclusion, as he was about to take his seat a telegram
was handed him, when he resumed as follows: —
"I ask the indulgence of the audience for one moment, while I read a
telegram. It it from a gentleman to whom I had communicated my in-
tended course and my motive when I first took position for the acceptance of
the reconstruction measuies. He is a bosom friend, a man of the highest
character ; he was an ornament to the judiciary of Georgia, while upon the
560 liO^- EMORY SPEER.
bejicli; lie ably rppre=eiit('d our country at a foreign court, and on the plains
of JMexico, anil on the ensiinj;uint:(l tieiils of the South he led lis troops
with the gallantry and courage of a ^larshal N»,'y; he is one of tlie purest
and noblest men of Georgia, the Hon. Henry 11. Jackson, of Savannah."
[Applause ]
The speaker then handed the telegram to a friend,
who read as follows: —
Savanxaii. Ga., )
Nov. 15, IbtiU, 9:4U p. m. ^
"Returning home, have just opened your letter too late to reply by mail. In
the conversiiiion referred to, you u.^^ed arguments afterwards addie.ssed to
the public. In adiliiion, you said that unless someone should pursue the
course you contemph/ted, you ihouglit great evil woidd result to our people.
You telt it your duty to pursue that course, but believed you would
probably be sacrificed; that you were prepared to make the saciifice. look-
ing alone to the protection of your race against the peculiar dangers be'ore
it. This briefly is my recollection of the conversation. You can publish
if vou desire. " Hexky R. Jackson."
The telegram was greeted with renewed applause, when
loud calls were nuide for the Hon. Emory Speer, who
spoke as follows: —
" Ladies and Gentlemen : — I cannot do myself the injustice to fail to thank
you for the compliment, the very gratifying compliment, which you pay me
this evening by this invitation to speak to you. It would ill become me,
however, to attemjit to supjilement the logic, the force and the natural
eloquence of that magnificent vindication which has just fallen from the
lips of this di.-tingui.'-hed (Georgian. [Applause.] It was not .«pread-eagle
oratory ; it was not that power above power, of heavenly eloquence, that
with the strong rein of commanding words doth master sway and move the
eminence of men's aifectimis ; but a simple narrative, it was, my fellow-
citizens, the eloquence of truth. [Applause.] The vindication is absolute;
it is complete. Were 1 a member of the General Assembly of Georgi;i I
would vote for that man for senator who. when a poor boy, drove a pair of
young steers of his own raising [Cheers and apidause] from Gaddistown in
the ninth district, to South Carolina, and there sold thein for the money
that paid for the board and schooling of the first year of his fiee life. [Re-
newed apjilause.] 1 woidd vote for the Juan who has successively become,
by his unaided exertions, senator in the General Assembly of Georgia, judge
of the sujierior court, governor of this grand old Commonwealth, chief jus-
tice of the supreme court of his State, president of the most powerful rail-
EE-ELECTION OF SENATOR BROWN. 561
road corporation South, and senator from Georgia. [Applause.] I do not
believe in that school of politics which teaches the doctrine of unpardonable
sin. For my part I am proud of this great Georgian. [Applause.] I have
witnessed his efforts in the senate chamber of the United States. I heard
there the first utterances that fell from his lips. And I saw that such men
as Blaine and Conkling regarded him at once as a foeman worthy of their
steel. [Applause.] Let us not live in the past. Let us not, like political
ghouls, drag from their graves the dead issues of the past and make them
like ghosts that will not down, but terrify and mislead ; let us, my fellow citi-
zens, live in the living present, and in the hopeful future. And let us, oblivious
of the past except to remember its lessons of heroism and to avoid its
mistakes, labor to develop that magnificent heritage with which a divine
providence has blessed the American people. [Renewed applause.] So
living and so acting upon the plane of a common humanity, a common brother-
hood, a common destiny and a common country, our institutions will pros-
per, our government will flourish, and soon the day will hasten on
' When freedom's flag, here first unfurled,
Shall wave above earth's prostrate thrones,
And its bright stars shall light the world.' "
[Great and continued applause.]
The vote of the Legislature for United States senator
stood 146 for Governor Brown and 64 for General Law-
ton, being a majority of 82, or 12 over a two-thirds
majority in an aggregate of 210 votes. It was a fairly
won victory of the most decisive character. It was so
complete a triumph as to destroy the possibility of depre-
ciation. The result could not be construed as the test
of the strength of General Lawton with the people, for
under other circumstances he would have received a
larger vote. But the result was the measure of Gov-
ernor Brown's renewed hold upon his people, and no man
could have made a better showing against him than the
distinguished citizen and soldier whom he so decisively
defeated.
Senator Brown's career in the Senate has been a sur-
prise and marvel of industry and intellectual activity.
There is nothing in the history of legislation to compare
36
562 ABLE SPEECHES IN THE SENATE.
with it. Let us look briefly at the topics upon which he
has made elaborate and thoughtful speeches, full of in-
formation and statesmanship, exhibiting profound knowl-
edge and broad reflection, and involving the most difficult
subjects of national and international legislation. Among
these were speeches as follows: — 1. December 15, 18S0,
On the Educational Fund, covering 13 closely printed
nonpareil pages; 2. January 24, 1881, Land in Severalty
to Indians, and is he a Citizen under the 14th Amend-
ment? 13 pages; 3. February 17, 1881, The Bill to
refund the National Debt, 8 pages; 4. March 28, 1881,
That Peculiar Coincidence of Senator Mahone, 15 pages;
5. April 14, 1881, A Free Ballot and a Fair Count, 20
pages; 6. January 18, 1882, On the Silver Question, 20
pages ; 7. February 16, 1882, The Mormon Question, 15
pages ; 8. March 6, 1882, The Chinese Bill, 16 pages ;
9. March 27, 1882, A Tariff for Revenue with Incidental
Protection, 16 pages ; 10. December 14, 1882, Civil Ser-
vice Reform, 15 pages ; 11. January 8, 1883, The Right
of the Confederates to the Proceeds of the Sale of Cotton
in the Treasury, 24 pages; 12. January 23, 1883, The
Tariff and the Internal Revenue Sj^stem, 15 pages; 13.
February 20, 1883, The Proj)er Rule for Raising Revenue,
16 pages.
These speeches are printed in the Appendix to this
volume, and ilhistrate the versatile, the practical, the
prodigious capacity of Senator Brown, and they consti-
tute a series of intellectual demonstrations unparalleled
in the annals of Congress. A senator who in one term
of six years accomplishes two leading speeches upon large
themes of national interest comes up to the full measure
of a reasonable public expectation. The preparation for
such an attempt involves heavy labor and extensive re-
HIGH ESTIMATE IX THE SENATE. 563
search, the examination of authorities, and the study of
statistics. The serious part of the speech is, then, the
adjustment of the line of thought, the construction of the
groundwork with suitable material, and the erection of a
symmetrical superstructure of deduction that will pass
the unsparing criticism of the highest representative
statesmanship of fiity millions of intelligent people, im-
bued with the spirit of free institutions.
In a little over two years this strong-brained and mar-
vellously equipped senator from Georgia prepared and
delivered a dozen leading speeches upon the largest topics
of national statesmanship, all admitted by his critical col-
leagues in the august body to be masterly expositions,
attracting general attention by their original treatment,
marked by breadth of conception, builded with consum-
mate logic, and looking to a sagacious practicality of
result. The high estimate put upon his powers by the
members of the Senate was variously expressed. Men of
all parties united in strong encomium upon his abilities.
Senator McDonald of Indiana. used these words about
him : —
" He is one of the most valuable additions made to the
Democratic force in the Senate for years. More than
that, he is a senator whose influence will be felt all over
the country. He seemed to recognize instantly upon
coming into the Senate that it was not a debating society,
but strictly a practical business body. He therefore
'became at once a sensible, straightforward, sagacious
worker, and won the confidence and esteem of both sides
of the chamber. He can be a power for good in the
practical questions that must be settled now that senti-
mental issues have died out."
Mr. Hill, his colleague, valued his powers highly. Their
564 AMONG THE LEADING SENATORS.
political careers had been curiously blended. In his first
race for governor, Senator Brown had defeated Mr. Hill
after a heated canvass and discussion. Mr. Hill was a
warm supporter of conscription and other matters of pol-
icy by the Davis administration, when Governor Brown
opposed such policy. In the reconstruction days they
stood against each other in their famous controversy on
the " Notes on the Situation," though Mr. Hill subse-
quently came to Governor Brown's views. They were
now colleagues, and Senator Hill, in his admiration for
his old antagonist whom he had learned to know, declared
him possessed of ''discretion, sagacity, and inflexible
patriotic sentiments." Senator Conkling, himself a man
of large mental stature, affirmed the opinion that he
" looked to see Senator Brown one of the most notable
men in the country." Perhaps the most felicitous piece
of praise of the new Georgia senator was by Senator
Lamar of Mississippi, who said, " The ease, dignity, and
power with wdiich he establislied himself as one of the
leaders of the Senate was simply marvellous."
His speech on the " Peculiar Coincidence " of Senator
Mahone, a Democrat, supporting a Republican organiza-
tion of the Senate and the nomination of his friends, Gor-
hara and Riddleberger by the Republican caucus, for sec-
retary and sergeant at arms, was effectively made. The
Democrats would not go into an election, and the Repub-
licans held back from executive session. Senator Brown
exposed the significance of Senator Mahone's un-Demo-
cratic conduct, and was the instrument of holding the
Democrats in determined opposition to the fillibustering
tactics of the Republicans. His policy was followed and
resulted in a Democratic triumph, the first in a long pe-
riod, and which counteracted the demoralization that had
DISCUSSION OF THE NATIONAL FINANCES. 5G5
been gradually seizing the Democracy. This speech and
the line of policy connected with it, illustrate the bold,
astute, self-reliant quality of leadership that has given
Governor Brown such success in political management.
One striking peculiarity of Senator Brown is the full-
ness with which he works, giving an exhaustive treatment
to whatever he handles. This is especially true of these
senatorial speeches. With a remarkable perception of
fundamental principle, with great faculty of generaliza-
tion accompanied by absolute grasp of detail, his exposi-
tions of the subjects were thorough and searching, going
to their very vitals.
His speech on education covered the subject entirely.
Always an advocate of the most liberal educational facili-
ties, standing, as the young governor of thirty-seven years
of age, far ahead of the times, his early convictions had
ripened with years, and he presented an unanswerable line
of thought impregnably fortified with historic illustration.
Upon the colossal theme of national finances he made two
strong and able expositions, one on refunding the national
debt, and the other against the policy of contracting the
currency by the withdrawal of the silver certificates from
circulation, and urging that the proper circulating medium
of this country was gold and silver coin, based upon the
proper ratio of equivalence between the two metals, and
issues of paper predicated upon and convertible into coin
on demand. These efforts were marked by breadth of
view and that keen discernment of the practical needs of
the country that distinguish this senator upon all public
questions. In this financial connection he made an elabo-
rate and conclusive argument on the rights of the citizens
of the late Confederate States to the ten millions of dol-
lars in the United States treasury, the proceeds of the sale
566 CITIZENSHIP OF THE INDIANS.
of their cotton seized by the agents of the government,
discussing the effect of the President's pardon on their
rights.
On the mighty and perplexing subject of the tariff, that
kaleidoscopic puzzle of the politicians, he was the author
of three original deliverances, in which, with characteris-
tic boldness,' he formulated the doctrine upon which the
Democratic party must stand in its conflicts, a position
combining with singular felicity the requirements of prin-
ciple with the demands of progress. This happy enuncia-
tion was "a tariff" for revenue with incidental protection,"
and was ably argued. In the second of these tariff
speeches, he discussed in his trenchant and unmincing
method the wrongs of the internal revenue system, with
its arbitrary espionage and oppressions. The third of
these tariff speeches presented forcibly the proper rule for
raising revenue to support the government, taxing luxu-
ries hiorher and necessaries lower.
A subject of great magnitude and importance and in-
volving constitutional questions of delicacy was that of
citizenship, and upon this he made a series of speeches,
handling it in its various aspects with consummate mas-
tery and profound insight into the principles involved.
One speech was addressed to the citizenship of the Indians
in connection with their right to severalty in lands. The
second was upon the proper way of dealing with the
Mormons, whose religious system presents the anomalous
moral conundrum of our civilization. The third was con-
sideration of that vexatious inundation of Chinese labor,
that was pouring in upon the Pacific coast ; and whose
alleged evils were complicated with international treaties
affecting both commerce and misisionary operations. The
fourth, and a powerful presentation of view upon the
SENATORIAL LABORS. 567
overmastering negro question, was his extraordinary
speech upon a free ballot and a fair count, in which he
daringly asserted and proved that the colored citizens of
the South have greater freedom of ballot than a large
class of white citizens in New England, and that the Re-
publican party had done justice neither to them nor the
white Republicans of the South.
Another engrossing theme upon which Senator Brown
made one of his sensible and comprehensive speeches,
that seized the public thought and impressed the country
with his strong individuality, was civil service reform,
upon which there was a vast amount of cant and sophis-
try in vogue. The measure before Congress, the pet of
Mr. Pendleton, a Democratic aspirant for the presidency,
and favored by the Republicans as a political weapon,
was boldly declared by Senator Brown to be not de-
manded by public sentiment, and in its existing shape
either a delusion or injustice to a majority of the peo-
ple. And the operations of the measure since are veri-
fying the correctness of his strictures, sagaciously uttered
in anticipation.
These many speeches in so short a time, all able and
exhaustive, all upon great topics of pressing interest, all
covering every line of practical argument, directed both
to the underlying principles and their resultant utility,
afford striking examples of the wonderful mental fecundity
and immense industry of the man. They established the
high statesmanship of this senator, but they accomplished
more, they placed Georgia among the foremost in the
national councils for dignity and influence. Nor was
his senatorial labor confined to his great speeches. In
committee and in the departments he worked with energy
and tact for the interest of his constituents and the ad-
568 PUBLIC AND PEIVATE CHARITIES.
vancement of his State, pressing individual claims with
persistence and industry, and securing valuable appropria-
tions for our harbors and rivers. His voluminous corre-
spondence lias been promptly answered. All matters
consigned to his care for the State or individual citizens
have been attended to with despatch and effectively.
It will be seen that in the exalted responsibilities of
United States senator, Governor Brown, as in all other
trusts, private and public, has not only sustained himself
fully, but has been conspicuously prominent for his supe-
riority, placing himself immediately in the front as a
leader. In the very ripeness of his great faculties, with
all the conservative wisdom that his Christian maturity
and experienced statesmanship can give, Senator Brown
stands to-day in the highest position of public usefulness
and private distinction that he has ever occupied, and
holds in his grasp the achievements of lofty service and
honors for himself, his State, and his country.
Allusion has been made to his remarkable capacity for
business which has enabled him to amass a large and
growing fortune. But with the accumulation of wealth
there has been an accompanying display of a generous
and judicious private and public charit}^ His smaller
givings have been innumerable. With a heart full of
kindness and humility, he has ever been touched by suf-
fering. His greater charities have been munificent and
varied, and bearing a vast proportion to his means. The
objects of his liberality are to be seen widely scattered.
The Sixth Baptist church of Atlanta was the recipient of
$800 from him to aid in its construction. He donated
$500 to the Southern Baptist Convention. He gave
another $500 to assist in the purchase of an organ for the
Second Baptist church of Atlanta ; he contributed $1,000
GIFT TO THE STATE UNIVEESITY. 569
to the Georgia Baptist Orphans' Home ; he subscribed
$ 1 ,000 to Mercer University ; he came forward with a
timely gift of $3,000 with which to repair and make
additions to the Second Atlanta Baptist church ; he gave
two donations of $1,000 each to the Kichmond college
of Virginia ; he has furnished as high as $800 in a single
year to the payment of his pastor's salary; he was a con-
tributor to the erection of St. Luke's Episcopal church in
Atlanta ; he presented $2,100 for the erection of a parson-
age for the Second Baptist church ; he has contributed
liberally to the Christian church, the First Methodist
church, the St. Phillips church, the Unitarian church, and
to two or three colored churches in Atlanta. He has
recently donated $3,500 to the rebuilding of the Kim-
ball house ; to the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
he gave the magnificent endowment of $53,000.
His latest large gift was marked by peculiarly touch-
ing features, exemplifying his charitable spirit and noble
encouragement of education, and tenderly illustrating the
warm paternal instincts of his strong nature. The death
of his cherished son, Charles McDonald Brown, in the
very beginning of his bright and promising young man-
hood, from that fell disease, consumption, after an illness
of two years, proved a deep blow to his heart and was
the occasion of one of the most beneficent and useful
benefactions of his public spirit. Desiring to perpetuate
the memory of this sterling young man in an enduring
form in connection with a high public purpose, he de-
termined to give to the State University at Athens
$50,000 of the portion of his estate to which this son
would have been entitled, to be used in the education of
the poor young men of the State. The designs and
details of this magnificent gift are fully set forth in the
570 LETTER TO THE 150ARD OF TRUSTEES
following letter of the generous donor, and were sug-
gested bj Senator Brown's own hard experience when he
was a poor youth struggling to educate himself, and were
intended to provide a fuiid for just such cases as his own.
" Athkx-!, Ga., \
July 15, 1882. )
" To the Board of Trustees of 'the University of Georgia:
" Gentlemen : — I have had the honor to hold the position of trustee and
member of your Board for over a quarter of a century. During all this time
I have felt great interest in the success and prosperity of the U7nversity.
" It has long been my wish to do something -which may afford substantial
aid to it, and result in permanent future good to the people of this State w ho
have so long sustained and honored me. I am now in better condition to
carry out this cherished object than I have been at any time since my con-
nection with the board.
" Xearly one year ago my son, Charles McDonald Brown, a noble Chris-
tian youth, of fine intellectual and business capacity, the soul of honor and
integrity, who had been a student in the university, was taken from us by
death. He was named for my true and cherished friend, the late Governor
Charles J. McDonald.
" He was possessed of some estate, the bulk of which he left to me and his
mother, giving small sums to each of his brothers and sisters in token of his
love and affectionate regard for them. He had bright prospects, and if be
had lived might reasonably have been expected at no distant day, at my
death, to go into the possession of a considerable addition to his estate.
''Now, while it is my object to do something that will advance the inter-
est of the university and aid to some useful extent iu the education of worthy
young men of the State who are not able to educate themselves ; I desire at
the same time to perpetuate the name of my said deceased son in connection
with the university, and also that of my old friend, (Governor McDonald,
whose name he bore. As a means of doing this, I propose, with the consent
of your honorable body, and upon the terms and conditions hereinafter men-
tioned, to make a donation to the University of fifty thousand dollars —
money that might have been possessed by my son if he had lived — to be
known, and in all appropriate publications made by the university, desig-
nated as ' The Charles McDonald Brown scholarship fund.'
" This donation to be made on condition that the State of Georgia will
receive the said sum (which I will pay in cash into her treasury) to be used
in payment of the public debt, or in such other manner as may be for the
best interest of the State, and will issue her bond of bonds to the university,
bearing seven per cent, interest, the interest to be paid semi-annually to the
university, the bond or obligation to run for fifty years.
OF THE UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA. 571
" At the last session, the General Assembly passed an act to make perma-
nent the endowment of the university, which provides in substance that
whenever the trustees of the University of Georgia shall, through their duly
authorized agent or officer present at the State treasury for redemption any
valid, matured bond of the State as the property of the university that the
Governor shall issue to the trustees in lieu of said matured bond, an obliga-
tion in writing in the nature of a bond, in an amount equal to said matured
bond, falling due fifty years after date of such issue, the same to bear inter-
est at the rate of seven per cent, per annum, and not to be subject to be
called in for redemption by the State before that time, not to be negotiable
by the trustees but payable to them alone, to be issued under the great seal
of the State, signed by the governor and countersigned by the secretary of
state, etc.
" All I ask is that the State treat the amount which I propose to donate to
the university, just as she would treat any other amount of money which
may be the property of the university due at the maturity of any bond or
bonds of the State belonging to the university.
" I have long thought it the duty of the State to endow the university
liberally, and believe that wise statesmanship and sound policy dictated such
a course. While the representatives of the people have not done what it
seems to me would be wise, ia this particular, they have shown a disposition
to make permanent the endowment which the university possesses, and I
think it would be only a reasonable extension of this law to make it apply
to all funds that may be donated to the university, as well as to funds be-
longing to the university on maturing bonds. I cannot doubt that the Leg-
islature will see the wisdom and propriety of doing this, and I therefore
make the donation conditional upon the passage of an act to carry out this
object in accordance with the rule above mentioned, at the next session of
the General Assembly ; and upon the further condition that the fund shall
be used for the purposes, and in the manner hereinafter mentioned.
" There are hundreds, and I believe thousands of young men of good char-
acter in Georgia, who are intellectual and ambitious to become useful, who
desire to obtain a liberal education; some with a view to the profession of
law, others the practice of medicine, and some for the gospel ministry, some
engineers, architects, chemists, teachers? professors in colleges and other use-
ful and honorable pursuits, some of whom have at their command part of the
means necessary to board and clothe them, while engaged in the pursuits of
their studies in connection with the university. Other young men may be
very bright and very worthy, who have none of the means necessary for
board and clothing while engaged in their studies. I believe there are many
young men of both classes mentioned, who would consider it their good fort-
une to be able to borrow at a reasonable i-ate of interest a sufficient amount
to carry them through college, or to enable them to graduate in the particu-
lar profession or pursuit which they intend to follow, and who would be will-
572 LETTER TO THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES
ing, after they had obtained an education and prepared themselves for busi-
ness, to refund the money as soon as they could make it after providing for
their livelihood in an economical manner until they are able to pay it.
" Such a young man, who takes a proper view of the subject, would not de-
sire to incur more indebtedness than necessity required. He would be will-
ing for the sake of obtaining an education to wear plain clothing and be con-
tent with cheap board, if reasonably good and wholesome.
" I know from experience in early life the feelings of a youth desirous of
educating himself without the means to do so; and the good fortune which a
loan of money for support while engaged in study was considered as con-
ferring upon the recipient. I recollect very well, too, that prudence dictated
an economical course so as to incur no more indebtedness than was actually
necessary. I preferred to live plainly and cheaply and study hard rather
than be too much loaded with debt ; but I considered myself very fortunate
when I was able to borrow the amount actually necessary for the prosecu-
tion of my studies even to a limited extent. And I doubt not there are at
this time large numbers of young men iu similar situations who are prompted
by the same feelings.
" The object of this donation is to establish a fund in the hands of the uni-
versity the interest of which is to be loaned to young men of the character I
mention.
" First : To aid in part, such young men as may have some means, but not
sufficient to carry them through the course selected by them.
'' Secondly : To aid others who have no means, but who are bright and
worthy and ambitious to succeed. I desire that the university do this by
loaning the interest which may accrue from the principal each year, to young
men of the class above mentioned. No young man is to avail himself of the
benefit of this fund until he is eighteen years of age ; each to sign a pledge of
honor when he enters the college and commences to receive the fund, that he
will refund the amount he receives to the university as soon after he com-
pletes his course of study as he may be able to make it, living economically
iu the meantime; and as this obligation given during the minority of tlie
student would not be legally binding, let him also pledge himself that when
twenty-one years of age he will give to the university his obligation legally
binding for the payment of said sum as aforesaid with four per cent, per an-
num interest upon the same.
" As each will incur indebtedness by borrowing the means necessary to edu-
cate himself, each will become more self-reliant, which will be better for him
in the end, if he is manly and possesses talent, than if the amount had been
given him.
" And as tuition is now free in the university, I direct that not more than
two hundred dollars per annum shall be loaned to any student, to be ad-
vanced to him monthly during the scholastic year ; but interest to commence
to run on the amount advanced on each year at the end of the year. Having
OF THE UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA. 573
no tuition to pay, a young man with close economy may be able to get along
upon that sum ; and many who have part of the means necessary will not de-
sire so much.
" I earnestly urge upon each recipient of the fund the importance of pay-
ing back the money as promptly as possible ; and I trust each will consider
it a sacred obligation, as the payment increases the amount to be loaned to
others, who will be anxious to receive the same benefits enjoyed by him-
self.
" If there should be a larger number of promising young men apply for the
benefits of the loan than can be accommodated, then I direct that the trustees
of the university provide for a selection of recipients from time to time, in
such manner as in their judgment may be most fair and equitable. My wish
is that they may be selected as impartially as may be from all parts of the
State, so that each section may be represented. If there are many applicants
and it can conveniently be done, I think a competitive examination might be
best; but there will, no doubt, be many cases where this cannot be had with-
out difliculty, and where the young man is very bright and worthy, in which
case the appointment can very safely be made without a competitive exam-
ination.
" I wish such young men selected as are bright, and of good moral charac-
ter, apt to learn, in reasonable health, and ambitious to prepare themselves
for usefulness. I do not wish to make a donation to students, but to place a
fund in the hands of the university which it will loan them in aid of their
education, to be paid back by them as aforesaid.
"I desire the amount paid in by each student in return for the money he
has received be added annually as it is paid in to the principal sum above
mentioned, and only the interest upon it to be loaned in future, which will
from time to time enable the university to increase the number of young men
to whom it can make loans. This will ultimately increase the amount of prin-
cipal, which in course of time, if properly managed, will grow to a large
sum.
" I trust the Legislature of our noble and beloved State will make provi-
sion foy receiving this accumulation into the treasury from time to time, and
issue its bonds to the university in lieu of it, as the fund may accumulate. But
if, contrary to my desire and expectation, the State, after having given its
obligation for the principal sum of the donation above mentioned, shall at
any time refuse to issue its bonds for the accumulated fund, or shall, at the
end of fifty years, refuse to issue its bond or obligation for the principal sum
of fifty thousand dollars, and shall pay the same over to the university, then
the board of trustees may in each or either of said cases invest such funds as
may accumulate, in the bonds of the United States or of other States.
" The general provisions above mentioned are subject to the following
qualification :
'* I desire that the sum of one thousand dollars interest accruing annually
574 LETTER TO THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES
from the said pi'incipal sum of fifty thousand dollars, as above mentioned, be
used by the board of trustees aforesaid to aid young men to pursue their
studies in the North Georgia Agricultural college at Dahlonega, upon the
same terms as prescribed for students at the university at Athens, except that
the students who may participate in the benefit of this fund at Dahlonega
must be selected under such rules and regulations as the board of trustees of
the university may prescribe (to be reasonable and jusi), from the mountain
counties of northeast Georgia and the counties of Oconee, Pickens and An-
derson, of South Carolina. Pickens district, now Oconee and Pickens coun-
ties, contains my birthplace. My life, up to the commencement of my man-
hood, was spent in the district of my birthplace in South Carolina, and in the
mountains of northeast Georgia; and the first credit I received for money in
aid of my education was in the county of Anderson, South Carolina, in which
Calhoun academy, w'here I commenced my studies, is located.
" The mountain section above mentioned was the theatre of my early
struggle with poverty, in my attempt to educate myself; and I wish to pay
its people who have sympathized with and supported me in every emergency,
this small tribute of my grateful recollection. As the amounts loaned stu-
dents at Dahlonega are returned, I wish them to be added to the principal
which is set apart out of the sum of fifty thousand dollars donated as above,
to raise the said sum of one thousand dollars annually for said college at
Dahlonega, so that it may accumulate as in case of the fund set apart for
students of the university at Athens, both being placed upon the same prin-
ciple of accumulation.
'' If the North Georgia Agricultural college should at any time be discon-
tinued, which I trust may never occur, and any other school or college of like
grade should take its place at Dahlonega or in any of the mountain counties
of northeast Georgia, that is not denominational in its character, the bene-
fits intended for the North Georgia Agricultural college at Dahlonega are to
be transferred to the students of such college or high school as may be se-
lected by the board of trustees of the State university, to take its place in
said section of country.
"If, unfortunately, there should be at any time in the future no such
school kept in said section of northeast Georgia, for as much as five years,
then the fund set apart for that purpose shall be transferred to the university
at Athens, and become part of the fund, to be expended in aid of the stu-
dents there in the manner and on the terms already mentioned.
"If there should be any year when there are not enough applicants for the
fund, of good mo^al character and promise, to consume the amount of inter-
est accruing during that year, the accrued interest not so used is to be added
to the principal and placed at interest to be applied to the purposes already
designated.
"In case of the fund to be loaned to young men at Dahlonega, as living is
cheaper than at Athens, I direct that not more than one hundred and fifty
OF THE UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA. 575
dollars annually be loaned to any young man, while engaged in the pursuit
of his istudies, to be paid to him monthly, the interest for each to commence
at the end of the year. The amount in each case may seem small, but a young
man without means, who is not willing to live economically to secure an edu-
cation; or who is willing to go in debt to obtain larger means to be expended
in better living or for greater display at college, is not, in my opinion, the
person most likely to succeed, or most worthy to be trusted with funds which
he is expected to return.
" Any young man who pursues his studies for the purpose of preparing
himself for the ministry in any of the churches, and who, after the comple-
tion of his studies, devotes his time and talent under authority of his church
to the work of the ministry as his profession or business, shall only be re-
quired to return to the university one half the amount received by him with
interest as aforesaid.
" Any young man studying to prepare himself for the profession of medi-
cine, may pursue his studies at Augusta, where the medical department of
the university is located.
" No part of the fund herein mentioned shall at any time be paid as fees,
coramis:iions, salary or otherwise to the trustees or any officer o'r agent of the
trustees.
"As the fund is donated to aid poor but worthy young men to secure a
liberal education, I have full confidence that the trustees and officers of the
university, with whom I have acted so long, and their successors will, as here-
tofore in all cases connected with their trust, administer this as part of the
funds of the university for the good of all, for the usual salaries which the
officers would receive if no such fund existed.
" If it should at any time become nece:^sary to employ counsel to collect
money due from any one who borrowed it as a student, and is able to pay it
back and who refuses to do so, then it will beexjaected that the usual fees be
paid to such counsel, and some attorney niigiit, in such case, be employed to
look generally after such colkctions, and see that the university dots not suf-
fer loss by inattention to such collection.
" 1 reserve to my four sons, Julius L. Brown, and Joseph M. Brown, Elijah
A. Brown, and George M. Brown, each the right to select one young man to
receive the benefits of the loan and, as the one selected graduates or leaves
college, to select a successor, so that each may constantly during his natural
life keep one student of his own selection in the university, as a recipient of
the use of the funds necessary in his case, subject to the regulations above
specified, and in case any one or each of my sons shall select a kinsman
as near to him as the fourth degree of consanguinity, such student shall have
the benefit of tlie fund free from the obligations to refund it to tiie university,
if my said son so direct, all other selections to be made under the rules and
regulations to be prescribed by the board of trustees, as already men-
tioned.
076 EESOLUTIONS OF ACCEPTANCE.
" And my said sons and the survivors or survivor of them shall have all the
usual rights of visitation, with power to see that the trust assumed by the
board of trustees in behalf of the university is justly and faitlifully adminis-
tered, and, in case the trust is unjustly, illegally or wrongfully abused, topro-
ceed in the proper court to recover back the funds for the use of my legal
heirs; but neither my heirs nor any one of them sliall have the right to re-
cover back the said fund on account of any technical or inadvertent failure
to carry out the trust, if there has not been an important or substantial fail-
ure to do so.
" The survivor of my said four sons may by his will appoint some one with
like power of visitation, if he thinks proper to do so.
"Joseph E. Brown."
Gov. Brown's letter was referred to a special commit-
tee of the board, w^ho reported in favor of the acceptance
of the gift.
" Report of the committee unanimously adopted.
" The select committee to whom was referred tlie communication of Hon-
orable Joseph E. Brown to the board of trustees, made this day proposing a
donation to the university of fifty thousand dollars on certain terras and con-
ditions therein expressed, have duly considered the same and beg leave to re-
port the following :
" Resolved, That the proposition of Honorable Joseph E. Brown to the
board of trustees of the University of Georgia, made this day, be accepted
upon the terms and condition tlierein expressed.
" Resolved 2d, That this board, for themselves and in behalf of the peo-
ple of Georgia, tender their thanks to hiui for this munificent donation.
" Resolved, That a committee of five be appointed by the president of this
board to make known to the donor the action of the board upon the proposi-
tion to present the matter to the next Legislature, and ask that an act be
passed carrying it into effect, and to see that the papers are recorded accord-
ing to his request. " Alexander H. Stephens,
G. F. Pierce,
A. R. Lawton,
D. A. Vason,
J. A. BiLLUPS."
Obligation of Governor Brown.
" The board of trustees of the university having by resolution accepted my
proposition to donate to the university fifty thousand dollars to be known as
'The Charles McDonald Brown Scholarship Fund,' subject to the condi-
tions mentioned in my communication of this date, I hereby bind myself,
INCREDIBLE OPPOSITION. 577
my heirs, executors and administrators to pay into the treasury of the State
of Georgia for the benefit of the university, subject to the terms mentioned
in my said communication, the sum of fifty thousand dollars in cash so soon
as the Legislature of the State, at its next session, shall have passed an act
binding the State to receive the funds and give her obligation to the uni-
versity for the said fund payable fifty years after this date, with semi-annual
interest at the rate of seven per cent, per annum. And I desire the commu-
nication, resolution of acceptance, and this obligation recorded on the regu-
lar minutes of the board of trustees, and in the office of the clerk of the
superior court of Clarke county, Georgia, for preservation.
"Joseph E. Brown."
•' Executed in the presence of H. V. M. Miller, president pro tern.
"■ William L. Mitchell, secretary.
" James Jackson, chief justice of supreme court of Georgia."
Incredible as it may seem, this munificent act of large-
hearted and noble-motived benevolence, inspired by a
pathetic bereavement, framed with a consummate wisdom
to accomplish good, giving material aid to the great cause
of higher education, and placing our venerable Mother
University of Georgia upon its feet in a period of lan-
guor, met with opposition at the hands of a small portion
of the citizens of the State, who were politically hostile to
the generous donor. A few vigorous jeremiads were put
out in one or two hostile journals and several speeches
were made against it in the Legislature. Constitutional
scruples were raised. It seemed strange and foolish for
intelligent men to be erecting argumentative obstacles in
the way of a valuable State benefaction. It was a poor-
compensation to worthy young men for the loss of edu-
cational facilities tendered them to hear the law makers
split hairs and raise quibbles over a grand benefit. The
objections seemed puerile to the great masses of the peo-
ple who saw in the act an exalted piece of disinterested
philanthropy, a timely help to the State University, a
liberal benefaction to the poor youth of Georgia, and a
splendid contribution to the cause of education.
37
578 LETTER TO COLONEL ESTILL.
The bill to accept the donation failed in the House of
Representatives to receive the constitutional majority of
eighty-eight votes. Perhaps no more complete answer
could be made to the feeble objections to the superb gift
than the following letter of Senator Brown to Col. J. H.
Estill of Savannah, in reply to one from that gentleman
on the subject.
" Washixgton, January 3.
" COL. J. H. ESTILL, Savannah, Ga.
" Dear Sir : — In reply to your letter calling my attention to the objections
that have been made to the terms upon which I proposed to make a donation
of $50,000 to the University for the purpose of aiding poor young men to
obtain a liberal education, I have to state that the hard school of adversity
through which I had to pass in the days of my youth, and the great difficulty
I had in raising the means to secure what education I received, caused me
naturally to sympathize with young men who are placed in the situation I
then occupied. And as it was my wish to do something to aid the cause of
education, I did not see any other use to which the fund might be so profit-
ably applied.
" Manj"^ of the brightest and most promising young men in Georgia are
the sons of the poorest parents of the State. Others have parents in moder-
ate circumstances, but with large families, who are entirely unable to give
their children a liberal education. The wealthy, whose sons have the means
to go to college, possess great advantage over this worthy class of bright and
most promising young men, whose parents have not the means to educate
them and who have not the means to educate themselves. Many of the?e
would make leading men in the State and ornaments to society if in early life
they could borrow money enough, with close economy, to educate themselves.
My observation has been, as a rule, that that class of men are the most energetic
and likely to be the most useful. With sincere sympathy with this class, and
a desire to place them nearer than heretofore upon an equality with the sons
of the rich in the advantages they so much need, I determined to contribute
of my means as liberally as I felt in condition to do, to establish a fund, the
income of which should be perpetually devoted to that character of educa-
tion, upon a basis that the money borrowed by young men and paid back
by them should constantly increase the fund, so that in the lifetime of the
University it would grow to be a sum large enough to reach all the poor young
men of the State desiring it.
"In addition, however, to this view of the subject, it is due to candor that
I state that I had lost a most promising son, who had just reached man-
hood, and who had been a student at the State University; who, if he had
LETTER TO COLONEL ESTILL. 579
lived, would have inherited the money that I proposed to donate to the Uni-
versity. And I had a desire — which, if founded in a mistaken view of the
subject, I trust was a pardonable mistake — to perpetuate the name of my
beloved son, now no more in this world, in connection with this fund.
" The question then presented itself to my mind, are there any constitu-
tional difficulties in the way ? and I looked carefully into the provisions of
our State Constitution, and satisfied myself, beyond all doubt, that there were
none. In the first place, I found that the whole scope and spirit of the
instrument is intended to encourage the Legislature, and even the counties
and municipal corporations, in making appropriations for the education of the
people, first in the primary branches, and then to encourage the State Uni-
versity, and a university or college for the colored people. In connection
with this general scope and object of the Constitution, I find that those who
framed it intended to encourage citizens of the State, or of other States, to
make donations for the purpo.se of education. The language of the Consti-
tution under that head is, ' The trustees of the University of Georgia may
accept bequests, donations and grants of land or other property for the use
of said university.' In providing that the trustees may accept bequests or
donations, it certainly intended to encourage citizens of the State or other
liberal minded men to make to the university such bequests or donations.
" I did not feel, therefore, that it would be the policy of the State, if I
tendered a donation of this sort, to reject it, but supposed it would be the
policy of the representatives of the people to accept ; and, on any terms that
were reasonable, to encourage not only that but like donations from liberal
citizens. Taking this view of the subject, I naturally concluded that in con-
struing sections or paragraphs of the Constitution that might be considered
as limitations upon the power of the Legislature in taxing the people and
appropriating money, or incurring debts by the State, that a liberal construc-
tion should be put upon such paragraphs in favor of common school educa-
tion, in favor of appropriations to the University, and in favor of encourage-
ment of bequests or donations to it. In this view of it, if I had found
language that was doubtful as to the right of the State to accept a donation
upon tlie terms proposed, I should still have believed that it was the duty of
the members of the Legislature to put a liberal construction on the instru-
ment to meet such a case, and to encourage such an endowment. But I find
no such diificulty in the Constitution. It is true I find limitations as to the
right to issue bonds, or to incur indebtedness on the part of the State, but
they do not deny to the State the power to incur a debt in a case like the one
now under consideration.
" When I looked to paragraph 1, article 7, section 3, of the Constitution,
I found this language : ' Xo debt shall be contracted by or on behalf of the
State, except to supply casual deficiencies of revenue, to repel invasion, sup-
press insurrection, and defend the State in time of war, or to pay the exist-
ing public debt ; but the debt created to supply deficiencies in the public
revenue shall not exceed in the aggregate two hundred thousand dollars.'
580 LETTER TO COLOXEL ESTILL.
" Here, among other things, the power is given to incur a debt to supply
the casual deficiencies in the revenue which does not aggregate more than
two hundred thousand dollars, or a debt may be contracted to pay the exist-
ing public debt.
"Now, as is well known, we have a debt of some nine millions of dollars.
Portions of it are falling due frequently. In a short period more than three
millions of it will fall due in the same year. Nobody expects that the peo-
ple of Georgia will be taxed three millions to pay a debt coming due that
year. How shall we meet it? We shall doubtless i.*sue new bonds and
exchange them for the maturing bonds, or put them on the market and sell
them and get money with which to pay the maturing bonds. Does anybody
liold that the State is obliged to tax the people to pay every obligation as it
falls due? If so, why the exception to the rule giving to the Legislature the
right to contract a debt to pay the existing public debt? It seems to me
that is too clear for argument.
" The Hon. N. J. Hammond, Chairman of the Committee appointed by the
Board of the Trustees of the University, drew the bill that was before the Legis-
lature with great care, after all the able lawyers on the Board of Trustees,
except General Toombs, had approved the donation on the terms prescribed.
The bill required the money to be put into the treasury and to be paid out
to the maturing bonds of the State, and a new bond or obligation to be given
to the University to run for fifty years, bearing seven per cent, interest. How
did this violate the Constitution ? It might possibly have had to lie in the
treasury awhile before any bunds matured in the payment of which it could
be used. But as soon as fifty thousand dollars of the bonds did mature, why
might it not have been used in the payment of these bonds, and a new bond
or obligation given to the University for it? By what fine-spun distinction
can the right of the Legislature to accept money for the benefit of the Uni-
versity and give a new bond, and the right of the Legislature to accept money
from anybody wanting to purchase a bond and issue a new bond, be main-
tained where the object in both cases is to pay the money to the public
creditor ?
" But it has been said the rate of interest is too high. The State could
borrow money at four per cent. It is true, when she issued what are called
her baby bonds, at four per cent., paying commission for the sale, as I have
been informed, they were disposed of. But it was mostly to corporations
that used them, by paying them back to tiie State for railroad property pur-
chased, etc. It would be a strain upon the public credit of Geoigia that her
citizens might not care to see, to place her four per cent, bonds on the mar-
ket in the present condition of things. But I suppose no constitutional
lawyer will deny that the State has the right to issue bonds for money
received and used in payment of maturing bonds, or that the Legislature
has the right to fix the rate of interest, and that it might legally in
such case be fixed at seven per cent. That is the rate of interest fixed in
LETTER TO COLONEL ESTILL. 581
Georgia between man and man, where there is no contract varying it. That
is precisely the rate of interest fixed in the law now upon the statute book,
where the State bonds held by the University are maturing. The law pro-
vides in such case that the Governor shall take up the maturing bonds and
issue new bond or obligation to the University running fifty years, at seven
per cent., payable semi-annually.
" I looked at the law, which I found upon our own statute books as appli-
cable to the University, and placed my proposed donation upon precisely the
same terms. I simply said, as you take up the maturing bonds of the Uni-
versity, and give new bonds at fifty years at seven per cent, semi-annu-
ally, I will add fifty thousand dollars to the endowment if you will take that
sum and give the bond or obligation of the State running for the same time,
at the same rate of interest which you pay the University in new bonds, on
all State bonds which she may hold as fast as they mature. Was this
unreasonable? Why should the State refuse to pay the same rate of inter-
est on money (which I give the University) which she pays on money re-
ceived from the land grant fund?
" Again, suppose the Legislature could borrow money at five per cent, and
issue bonds of the State in payment, and suppose any other citizen than
myself were to point to the provisions in the Constitution which relate to the
encouragement of education and to the encouragement of the University for
the white as well as for the colored race, and to the encouragement of dona-
tions ; and such citizen were to saj', 'I will give you $50,000 to aid in the
education of a most worthy class of young men who have always been denied
the benefits of a liberal education, which $50,000 you could not borrow for
less than five per cent., if you will give a seven per cent, bond, contributing
two per cent, out of the treasury to aid that class of young men, and to ad-
vance the objects contemplated by the Constitution.' Think you the Legis-
lature would have rejected a proposition put in that shape from any liberal
citizen not in public life, who might have made the tender, even if there had
been no statute, and no law on the statute book prescribing the rate of in-
terest which the State allows on her maturing bonds to aid the University ?
How could the Legislature do so much in aid of the University for so small
a sum in any other way as it could by adding two per cent, to the rate of
interest at which it could borrow money on all donations that might be made
to the University ? In such case the donor furnishes the capital, and, in
effect, pays to the University the five per cent, per annum which the money
would be unquestionably worth, and the State pays only two per cent, on the
money without furnishing a dollar of the capital, a very small proportion.
The University in this way would produce wonderful results for the future,
at a nominal cost to the State, if donations could be secured on these terms.
" However, I simply claim in this case that as my donation is admitted to
be a liberal one, the State should, in my opinion, have taken it for the bene-
fit of the class of poor young men for whom it was intended, and at the same
582 LETTER TO COLONEL ESTILL.
rate of interest that she pays on other funds belonging to the University,
which accrue from her maturing bonds owned by the University. Why make
a distinction between the interest tlie State will pay on my donation and the
interest it will pay on other funds due the University ? Is that the way to
encourage others to make liberal donations to the University to aid in the
cause of education ? Experience will soon show whether it affords such
encouragement.
" The sons of wealthy men have so long had the advantage and received
the chief benefits of the University that it may be thought by jsart of that
class and their representatives that it is an innovation to open a way for the
brightest class of the sons of the poor. If my donation had provided for bet-
ter facilities for the sons of the wealthy, it might have met a different fate
at the hands of some of those who sat in judgment upon its merits.
" But a word more on the subject of interest. If I were simply seeking
popular applause, what need I care whether the State paid seven per cent, or
four per cent, on the moneys? In either case I would have given the fifty
thousand dollars to the University, and in neither case would a dollar of
principal or interest come back to me. The only question was, whether the
poor young men should have the benefit of the larger or smaller rate of inter-
est. In the one case, the fund would have educated a larger and in the other
a smaller number of those for whose benefit it was intended.
" But it is proper to notice one otiier point. Objection was made that I
appointed my sons visitors, as the law would term it. In other words, that I
reserved to them the right to see, during their lifetime, and to the survivor
of them, the right to name in his will a person who may see in his lifetime
that the money is not squandered or recklessly wasted. Or, in other words,
that the trust is carried out and tlie money applied to the uses for which it is
given. That is all the right of visitation means. As every one acquainted
with such matters knows, it is one of the most common provisions in case of
donations made to colleges wherever the English language is spoken. In the
English colleges, even the endowment of a scholarship is usually accom-
panied by such provisions against waste or misapplication of the fund. In
that country the rector of a parish, or some person or corporation where there
is perpetual succession, is frequently made the visitor. In my case I only
proposed that the right of visitation, or the right to look after the fund and
see that it is not squandered or misapplied, last for two lifetimes. The life-
time of the University runs through centuries, therefore, in comparison with
the whole term for which the donation would run, the right of visitation is
reserved for but a fractional period. And then only for a substantial violation
of the trust, not on account of any technical error or unintentional mistake.
" This is only securing to my sons, by direct reservation, what the com-
mon law, as expounded by the ablest authors, gives to the heirs of every
founder who endows a college, to wit : the right in case of a substantial
failure to carry out the trust, or a gross or wilful misapplication of the fund,
LETTER TO COLONEL ESTILL. 583
to call the persons whose duty it is to execute the trust to account in the
courts. Who will deny the justice and propriety of such a provision for the
preservation and protection of the fund, and to secure its appropriation to
the uses for which it is given ?
" But it is complained that I reserved to my four sons, during the lifetime
of each, the right to select one young man who is to have the benefits of the
donation. One of the principal troubles the Board of Trustees will have
will be in the proper selection of the young men who are to be benefited.
As the fund accumulates it would during the lifetime of the University run
into millions of dollars, and there would be two or three times as many poor
young men enjoying the benefits as there are now students in the University.
But even during the lifetime of my sons, it might run to fifty or one hundred
a year. Was it unreasonable to say that each of them might select one ?
Or, if it run to only twenty a year at the commencement, was it unreasonable,
as I gave the money, that each of my sons select one of them ? If I had re-
tained the money as a part of my estate, it is reasonable to suppose that they
would have inherited it at my death. Therefore, each is to that extent a
part contributor, and the reservation of the right of each to select one of the
beneficiaries seems to me to be reasonable. No matter how large the fund
grows, or how large the number of beneficiaries, they would each still have
the right to select only one. If the number reached one hundred, and my
sons were all in life, they would select four and the trustees ninety-six. If
two of them should be dead, the survivors would select two aud the trustees
ninety-eight.
" But another provision is objected to, and that is, that in case the person
selected is a relative, my son may, in his discretion, relieve him from paying
the money back. AVhether this would have ever occurred in a single instance
is very doubtful. There might have arisen a case where a relative might
have been educated under the provision, and, on account of some misfortune,
it might have been their pleasure to relieve him from the repayment of the
money, with the four per cent, interest, as required of other young men.
But as the object of this donation is to make worthy young men who are poor
feel that they are not charity scholars, but in an independent, manly way that
they are borrowing money to educate themselves, it would be neither my
wish nor the wish of my sons to relieve a relative from the repayment, unless
in some case of affliction or misfortune. And in the case of some one selected
by the trustees, not a relative, there would probably occasionally be a failure
to return the money to the University.
" Again, suppose some of the relatives of my sons should be educated out of
the fund, would it not be reasonable to suppose that as educated citizens they
would be as serviceable to the State as young men not related to us or se-
lected by them who might be educated in the same way? And as it would be
done with money donated by me,who would be wronged, as ten, probably fifty,
not related would get the benefit for every one of my relatives who received it ?
584 LETTER TO COLONEL ESTILL.
" But it has been said the act was intended to give to my sons some sort of
advantage or political ascendency in Georgia. How could this be ? The
three who are of age are all settled down in regular profitable business pursuits.
No one of them has shown the slightest disposition to engage in politics, and
it is not probable they ever will. But if they should, what advantage would
the fact that I had given $50,000 to the University, and that they have the
right to see that it is not recklessly squandered or wasted, be to them in
political life? The idea is simply absurd. I leave the country to judge of
the motives of those who make such groundless appeals to popular prejudice,
or to what tliey doubtless suppose to be popular ignorance.
" One other point. It is objected that I give some advantages in the selec-
tion of beneficiaries to the young men of the mountain section of our State,
including three counties in South Carolina, which contain my birthplace, and
the place where I had my earliest struggles with poverty in my effort to edu-
cate myself. It may be true that the feeling of love and veneration we
cherish for our birthplace, and the scenes of our youth and companions of
childhood are mere sentiment. Be it so. It is a sentiment that finds a lodg-
ment in every generous nature, and a response in every patriotic heart — a
sentiment which I shall cherish to the latest moment of my life, and upon
which I shall delight to act on every appropriate occasion.
" Again, it has been said the State does not wish to borrow money from
me at seven per cent.
"I do not wish to lend any to the State. I only proposed to donate to the
University $50,000 to aid poor but bright and worthy young men in obtain-
ing such education as they need and wish at the University and at its branch
at Dahlonega, if the State would take the money and use it in payment of
her maturing debt, and pay to the University (not to me) the same rate of
interest which by her own statute she binds herself to pay for fifty years, on
all her bonds now owned by the University, as fast as they mature. Not a
dollar of the principal or interest, if the donation were accepted, is to be paid
back to me, or to any child or children of mine. Every dollar of it is to be
expended in the education of young men in the State, which would result in
incalculable benefit to the State. It could result in no more personal benefit
to me or my children than to any other citizen of the State. The right of
visitation to see that the fund is not wasted, but applied to the uses for which
it is given, is reserved to my sons, and the right during the life of each to
select one of the young men to be educated is also reserved. This is all.
Not a dollar of pecuniary benefit is reserved to me or to them. Not a dol-
lar of the money is to be returned to us. Not a dollar is to be loaned to tlie
State by me or them. Fifty thousand dollars was ofi"ered as a gift to the
University, if the State would take it and pay the same interest she pays
for other funds belonging to the University.
" However, I have made this letter longer than I intended. I wish you to
understand fully my view of this question. If I was actuated by any
LEGISLATIVE ACTION CONDEMNED. 585
unworthy motive I am not aware of it. I of course regret that the House of
Representatives feel it its duty, no matter by what motives prompted, to
reject the donation, as I had hoped it would result in great benefit to the
mass of the people whose sons are now excluded from the benefits of a liberal
education. It is still my fixed purpose to appropriate that sum to the very
object contemplated in the proposition to the University and Legislature. I
intend to do so either in or out of the State, upon as nearly the exact plan
as possible, simply because I think the plan is right in itself. It is true I
shall regret it, if the action of the representatives of the people denies to the
sons of the class of people for whom it was intended, this benefit, and com-
pels me to give it to the young men of that class in another State, when I
would greatly prefer that our own young men who so much need it, should
have the benefit.
" I beg to assure you I do not feel hurt personally at the action of the
Legislature. I believe, on calm reflection, after they have consulted their
constituents, possibly the representatives of the people who voted against
accepting the donation may realize the fact that they have made a mistake.
Taking the mildest view of it, I do not think it can be claimed that their
action will have a tendency to encourage other like donations to the Uni-
versity, or to those struggling to obtain such education as is taught in any
department of the University which fits them for the profession or business
in life which they expect to follow.
"I have written the above that my own views and motives in this matter
may be fully understood. I shall engage in no discussion — no controversy.
I have said all I expect to say. I cannot importune the people or their repre-
sentatives to accept a large sum of money as a gift from me for a purpose
or in a manner which they do not approve. Each citizen of the State who
feels enough interest in the subject to look into the facts will form his own
conclusions as to the propriety of my course in the pi'emises, and as to the
wisdom of the act rejecting the donation.
" Possibly the application of the constitutional test to some other acts and
resolutions of the Legislature as compared with the constitutional scruples
which prevented the passage of the act to accept my donation might not be
uninteresting to the public. But as I decline controversy, I shall not enter
upon the comparison, nor shall I inquire into the motives which prompted
action in either case.
" Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
" Joseph E. Brown."
It must have been a temptation to any man to forego
a generous purpose so unkindly treated. The public
sentiment, however, began to speak in thunder tones in
condemnation of the legislative action, showing that
586 NOT TO BE THWARTED.
the cavilling of a few croakers was not the feeling of the
people who warmly appreciated the philanthropical act.
But Senator Brown is not the man to be thwarted in his
charities any more than in his business or politics. He
has alwnys a habit of grasping victory at an unexpected
moment when his adversaries are in the very repose of
fancied triumph, and by some cool, easy stroke achieve
success so complete as to take the breath away.
The following letter of his to the trustees of the State
University explains the new movement that he made, viz. :
the purchase of the bonds and their tender to the institu-
tion. This movement demonstrated that he was sincere
in his generous intent and that he had both fiilsified and
circumvented his objectors.
" Atlanta, March 31, 18S3.
" To the Trustees of the University of Georgia :
" Gentlemen : — On the 15th of July last I proposed in a written communi-
cation addressed to you to make a donation to the university of fifty thousand
dollars for the purpose, and upon the terms and conditions therein mentioned.
One of the requirements of the proposition was, that the Legislature of Georgia
at its next session should provide for receiving said sum into the treasury of
the State, and for the issuance of fifty thousand dollars of the bonds of the
State to the university in place of said amount, having fifty years to run
with seven per cent, interest payable semi-annually. The Legislature met at
the usual time in November and adjourned without having made provision
for the receipt of the money and the issue of said bonds to the university.
The proposition was accepted by your honorable body when made by me,
but as the Legislature did not make provisions for issuing the bouds I sup-
pose neither party is now bound by the proposition or acceptance.
" It is still my desire to appropriate that sum of money for the education
of poor young men in the University of Georgia, as specified in said proposi-
tion. And with a view of avoiding all misunderstanding on the subject and
of placing this amount in the hands of the trustees of the university, for the
purposes above referred to, I have purchased fifty thousand dollars of the
valid bonds of the State of Georgia, which are not now due but will mature
ou the first day of April, 1883, and I propose now to deliver said fifty thou-
sand dollars in the above bonds of the State of Georgia to the trustees of the
University of Georgia, as the property of said university, for the same uses
A LIVELY EPISODE. 587
and upon precisely the same terms, except as herein modified, as are set forth
in my written communication to this board, dated 15th of July last, the said
bonds on delivery to this board to become the property of the university for the
uses and upon the terms above mentioned, upon the condition subsequent that
the trustees of the university shftU vi'ithin a reasonable time, say within two
months from the maturity of the bonds, through their duly authorized agent
or officer, present at the treasury of the State for redemption the said bonds
as the property of the university, and shall receive from the Governor of the
State, in lieu of said matured bonds so presented for payment, an obligation
or obligations in writing in the nature of a bond in amount equal to the
principal of the bonds, so presented as provided in an Act to make perma-
nent the income of the University of Georgia and for other purposes, approved
September 20, 1881.
" This will place the bonds, which I now propose to donate to the university
through this board, upon the same footing precisely as all other bonds of the
State belonging to the university are placed by the Act of 1881. I have the
bonds now present ready for delivery if this proposition is accepted.
"Joseph E. Brown."
Senator Brown in the purchase of these bonds had to
pay a large sum of premium, which made the donation,
so far as he was concerned, much larger than the $50,000.
The trustees of the university assembled, and, with the
single dissenting vote of General Robert Toombs, accepted
the bonds. Quite a lively episode occurred in the Board.
General Toombs spoke against the acceptance of the
bonds, claiming it unconstitutional. Senator Brown asked
him if he had not taken position before this that under
the new Constitution the Legislature had power to borrow
money to donate to the university. General Toombs
replied promptly in the negative. Senator Brown ad-
monished him to think carefully, and asked if that had
not been his position. General Toombs insisted that it was
not and had not been. Senator Brown drew a letter from
his pocket, written by General Toombs, which he explained
had come into his possession under the following circum-
stances : Mr. Elam Alexander had made a gift of money
to the trustees, to be used for educational purposes under
588 GEN. TOOMBS IX A FALSE POSITION.
the act of 1859, which authorized the governor to receive
the money into the treasury and issue bonds in lieu of
it. Colonel Whittle, one of the trustees, was in doubt
whether he could pay the money into the treasury and
get the bonds, or whether the Constitution of 1877 re-
pealed the law of 1859 under which the bonds asked for
could be issued ; and he sought the opinion of several
leading gentlemen, among them General Toombs. Colonel
Whittle then sent three of these responses, including that
of General Toombs, to Senator Brown, requesting his
view of the matter. Senator Brown wrote indorsing the
issuance of the bonds; and as the subject was one of
public importance and General Toombs' letter an em-
phatic one, he had taken copies of the three letters,
which he expressed the desire to retain if it was not
deemed inappropriate by Colonel Whittle that he should
do so. As no objection was made by Colonel Whittle,
the copies were still in his possession. Senator Brown
continued his remarks before the Board. statinc>: that he
should not feel at liberty to read the letter if General
Toombs objected, at the same time he would do so if
General Toombs was willinir.
General Toombs replied curtly to read anything he
had written. The letter was read and made a sensation,
containing as it did a decided opinion that the Constitu-
tion of 1877 did not repeal the law of 1859, and that the
governor could issue a bond for the Alexander donation.
The letter also contained the distinct statement that the
Legislature had the right, under the Constitution of 1877,
to borrow money to donate to the university. In view
of the questions and answers that had preceded the pro-
duction of the letter, its reading created a decided sen-
sation in the Board. The letter placed General Toombs
A TWOFOLD BENEFIT. 589
of the past against General Toombs of the present, and
his failure to remember his former attitude made his
present position all the weaker, and entirely nullified his
argument. The trustees voted for the acceptance of the
bonds; thirteen for and one — General Toombs — against.
After the bonds fell due the trustees applied to Gov. Jas.
S. Boynton for the new security, and on the eighteenth
day of April, 1883, that Executive issued a single bond
for $50,000 at seven^ per cent, interest, due in fifty years,
under the act of 1881 ; which was the precise thing asked
by Governor Brown when he tendered the cash douation
to the university. The bond was written on parchment.
There were already fifty or sixty young men applying
for the benefits of the fund. Governor Stephens took a
profound interest in this gift and looked forward to it as
the means of incalculable good, and as the operation on a
large scale of his own life-long system of educational aid to
young men.
The more that this plan of Senator Brown to aid the
imiversity is considered, the wiser does its philosophy
appear. There is a twofold benefit in it, to the benefi-
ciaries and the university, that could not be realized
under, and that gives it infinite superiority over, an ordi-
nary donation. The young men who get education under
it do so in a manner that fosters their independence and
requires them to treat their schooling as a debt to be
repaid and not a charity. The moral effect is much
better upon their characters, and induces the spirit of
pride of sentiment, and a habit of self-denial to get the
means to repay obligation, and the self-respect due to
self-reliance, the honorable freedom from burden, and the
proud consciousness that success is due to their own
labor.
590 A LASTING MONUMENT.
The advantage of this scheme to the university over
all other possible plans of endowment is that the repay-
ment of the interest loaned to the students steadily in-
creases the principal of the fund and enlarges the useful-
ness of the institution. It was certainly a sagacious and
far-seeing brain and heart that devised a plan so master-
fully promotive of the interest of both student and col-
lege,— a plan so original and perfect in conception and
detail, that the thoughtful mind is amazed that any pre-
judice could have found objection to it. As time passes
and the State becomes permeated with the educated
beneficiaries of this grand gift, — men of education and
influence, — and as the university grows in its expanding
capacity for educating the poor but intellectual and aspir-
ing youth of Georgia, trained, by this very ordeal to get
and pay for learning, to the discipline that makes good
steady men, the wisdom and benevolence of the author
of this noble scheme, and his fame as a public-spirited
philanthropist, will broaden and brighten, resting upon
the enduring basis of truth and the public welfare. Sen-
ator Brown has erected in this superb educational endow-
ment a lasting monument to his young son, whose name
it bears, so sadly removed, and to his own genius and
philanthropy. And he can safely repose upon this sub-
stantial ground his claim to the permanent and grateful
remembrance of the people of Georgia.
This volume may properly end with this splendid inci-
dent. It may be proper, however, to refer to the excep-
tional position that Senator Brown occupies in relation to
the distinguished public men of Georgia. Twenty 3'ears
ago the State had a larger array of great political leaders
than any State in the Union. Those illustrious spirits,
recognized giants in eloquence and statesmanship, have
SYMBOL AND LINK OF THREE EEAS. 591
recently passed away almost in a body. The old land-
ranrks have disappeared rapidly. Ilerschel V. Johnson,
II iram Warner, Benjamin H. Hill, Alexand-er H. Stephens
and Charles J. Jenkins — five of our strongest Georgians,
men of national fame and contemporaries of Joseph E.
Brown in the great events of the last two decades — have
one by one gone in a brief while. Senator Brown has
aided in the funeral obsequies of nearly all of these emi-
nent sons of Georgia. With Mr. Stephens he was closely
allied by links of friendly affection, and at his burial
Senator Brown delivered a beautiful and feeling eulogy.
■ Of the older leaders of a quarter of a century ago but
two remain, General Robert Toombs and Senator Joseph
E. Brown. General Toombs is about to retire from pub-
lic life. It is announced probably by authority that he
is to give up business entirely. Senator Brown is, there-
fore, the sole active survivor of the grand galaxy of
shining historic luminaries that made Georgia so power-
ful and so famous in the majestic events that preceded,
constituted and followed the greatest civil war of human
history. He is the connecting link with a momentous
past, and yet the most potential representative that the
State now has of the most vigorous and progressive
statesmanship of the present. Of the generation of
younger men, filling active public life, he is the admitted
leader. What a position for any man to occupy, illustri-
ous exponent of past, present, and future — type of the
highest fame, and public service of all — symbol and link
of the three eras in their most valuable public distinc-
tion!
It is a strange physical fact as typical of a curious in-
ner philosophy that Senator Brown, who in early and
middle life was a very plain person, has become a hand-
592 A CAREER OF INCREASING LUSTRE.
some old gentleman. He has gained some fulness, which
always adds comeliness to a spare person, and his flowing
white beard, expansive brow full of intellectuality, pleas-
ant but searching eyes, and kindly expression of counte-
nance make him a notable and attractive individual.
He is one of those persons that every one can recall in
every-day life, who were regarded as plain men in their
young days, who have flowered under the beautifying
alchemy of pure, brainful, laborious lives into handsome-
ness. Years of clean thought and successful endeavor,
of domestic purity and intellectual action, of victorious
ordeal mixed with enough of the inevitable chastening of
sorrow, chisel the features and face into a certain
comely result of these refining processes. An expres-
sive countenance becomes rounded and softer, and
a long, beautiful and useful life, by the steady attrition of
grace and power, gives an increasing attractiveness to a
noted face.
Senator Brown's career from this time onward must be
one of increasing lustre and power. In renewed and
streno-theningc health at the solid ao;e of sixty, when Eng-
lish leaders only get fairly into power, his potential states-
manship ripened to highest maturity, backed by large
wealth, he may reasonably look forward to political possi-
bilities, if such he wishes, as no Georgian yet has com-
passed.
APPENDIX.
Spkech of Hox. JosErn E. Bnowx, of Gkoijgia, in thk Sknate of
THE United States, June 12, 1^80, on thk Bill to Pknsion Sol-
diers IN the Mexican and Indian Wars; and on Reconstruc-
tion AND THE Rights of thf. Status in the Union.
On the bill (S. No. 1753) granting pensions to certain soldiers and sailors of the
Mexican and other wars therein named, and for other purposes.
Mr. Brown said :
Mr. President: Tliis Government, after too long delay, granted pensions
to the soldiers of the war of the Revohition without any qualification as to
their wealth or poverty.
We had the war of 1812. A long time passed before there were any pen-
sions granted to the soldiers of that war, but the time did come when the
(rovernment judged it was proper, on account of the valuable services ren-
dered by them to their country, to grant pensions to the old and decrepit
soldiers of the war of 1812. And 1 recollect no provision in that act that
drew any distinction between him who was in the poor-house or the old
soldier who lived in good style and had means to support himself. The
pension was not for his poverty, but for the valuable service rendered to his
country.
About thirty-four years ago we declared war against Mexico, and the
soldiery of this country rallied under the flag of the Government and
marched to that foreign soil, and achieved feats of valor the equal of which
have scarcely been known on any other fields. They soon overran the
country, humbled the government of Mexico, and dictated terms at its
capital; and as the honorable senator from Texas [Mr. INIaxey] justly tells
us, we annexed as the result of that conflict of arms an empire of territory
and an empire of wealth. The number of men was comparatively small who
achieved this grand result. True, we have since pensioned the wounded
and those who were disabled in that war. Time has passed along, and many
of the old soldiers of the Mexican war, as it has been so well and so elo-
quently said by the able senator from Indiana [Mr. Voorhees]. are becoming
decrepit. They are now mostly old men ; all except the youth who went in
then are now gray-headed, time-worn, little able to work for their support.
My honorable friend, the senator from Kentucky [Mr. Williams], in this
state of the case comes forward with his liill to pension those old veterans
who were his companions in arms, and the gallant old soldiers of the Indian
wars, and we are met here with amendments which seem to us to be intended
to defeat this measure. I neither impugn nor question the motives of sena-
tors, but I say it peems to us this is the intention; and if the amendments
prevail, that this is to be the effect. The amendment of the senator from
Kansas [Mr. Ingalls] is in substance that all the soldiers who lately fought
in the war for the preservation of the Union on the Union side are to be now
pensioned. Another amendment, offered by the honorable senator from
38
5D4 APPENDIX.
Maine [Mr. Blaine], i?, that the soldiers of the ^Icxican war are only to he
peiisioni'd where it is bhown that on account of their poverty their neces-
sities require it.
As I have said, that is an unusual amendment because it has not been in-
corporated in other bills granting pen.-ions to soldiers who have defended
the honor and the flag ot their country. It is not a proper time now, I insist,
to pension the Union soldiers indisciiniinately, nijr do I suppose honorable
senators on tiie other side have any intention of doing so, because tiie period
has not arrived which has brought tiiein to old age, or that has caused tlieni
on account of their age or inlirmities to be unable to work for an honest
liviu",'. If it were the purj'ose of senators to vote to "ive them pensions in-
discriminately now, it would tlien be the object of my amendment to post-
pone tbe operation of that part of the act till as long a period of time is past
after the service was rendered as has already passed in the case of soldiers
of the war against Mexico and of the Indian v.ars.
t tliink it Cannot be justly asserted that we of the South have been illib-
eral in voting pensions to Union soldiers who were disabled by the war. But
we insist that the cases are not parallel. It is not proper to put the Union
soldif-r on the pension-roll by the side of the old soldier in the war against
Mexico, because the length of time has not passed which disables him by
age or infirmity from nuikiug his own living by his own exertions or bis own
labor.
JNIr. Ingalls. Will it disturb the senator if I ask him a question?
JNlr. Brown. Xo, sir; not at all.
Mr. Ingalls. Does he base the right or claim to a pension upon the lapse
of time tliat has intervened since the close of the war in which the soldier
fought, or upon the necessities of the soldier or his surviving widow? I
should like an answer to that question.
Mr. Brown. I will answer the senator's qneslion by asking him one.
Does he in pensioning the wounded ofhcers of the Union army base it on
their necessities, or does he pension the poor and the wealthy who lost limbs
all alike ?
Mr. Ingalls. There is a class of pensions that are given to those who have
specific disabilities resulting from gunshot wounds or loss of limbs, and in-
juries of that descri|jtion. There is another class of what are called pensions
to dependent relatives, where there is no injury to the per.-on receiving the
pension, but where necessity and indigence and dependence must be pruved.
But my question was for tlie purpose of ascertaining whether or not the
senator believes that pensions should be granted simply upon the fact of
lapse of time since the war closed, or upon the fact that there is a depend-
ence and indigence and a necessitous condition that renders help from the
(iovernment desirable.
Mr. Brown. I think the period that has elapsed in case of tbe soldiers of
the war against Mexico is long enough, and tliat tiie pensions ought to be
granted; and the records will show that neitiier the senator nor his party,
nor those on my side, have made any exception in the case of woutuled
soldiers in the Union army. As we have pensioned all alike without niquir-
ing into their wealth or their poverty, we should pension all alike here with-
out inquiring into their wealth or poverty.
Mr. Ingalls. i*o we pension all the wounded soldiers and officers of the
Mexican war without inquiring into their poverty or their wealth. They all
Ktand on ihe same p'atform.
Mr, Brown. Then it follows when the time has come that it is proper to
pension the officers and privates who were not wounded, it should be done
without any regard to their poverty or wealth.
APPENDIX. 595
Mr. Tiigalls. Is it a question of time?
Mr. Brown. Yes; time has much to do with it, and when the proper time
come-5 to pension tlie Union soldier, I care not if he is a millionaire, who was
a faithful soldier and acted a gallant part, I would vote to pension all alike.
All who did the same service should have tl e same reward.
Mr. Conkling. Will the senator from Georgia allow me a minute?
Mr. Brown. Yes, sir, with pleasure. •
Mr. Conkling. He seems to be discussing this question with candor and
fairnes".
Mr. Brown. That is my intention.
Mr. Conkling. I believe it; and for his information and my own I beg to
submit to him tliis propo.sition : I understand the senator to argue tliat time
is the controlling matter, and ihat had thirty-three years elap.sed he would
be willintr to vote fur this amendment in favor of the soldiers of the Union.
I think 1 am right so far.
Now I ask the senator this question, or rather I submit to him in the form
of a query this impiession of my own: Although tlie proportion of men of
advanced age who servt-d in the Mexican war is of course immeasurably
greater now than in the case of men who served in the war for the Union, I
think that, speaking positively, speaking of actual numbers, there is a far
larger number of men advanced in age who served in the war for the Union
than who served in the Mexican war, growing out of the fact that the whole
number of enlisted men was s-o immensely greater. Forty-five years I believe
was the limit of age wliich subjected men to the draft. Now, without saying
that numbers of men volunteered who were beyond that age, the senator
will see tiiat a very large number of men who served in the war for the
Union must be now upwards of sixty. The war for the Union broke out in
1801 — in 1860 in reality, but I will say 1861; nineteen years ago. A man
who was forty-five years old at that time is now sixty-lour years old. Count
all these men ; and" is there not a nmcli larger number than of men surviving
who fcuigiit in tiie Mexican war who are even as old as that?
I tliink the honorable senator will be compelled, if lie will reflect a moment,
to agree with me ; and if he does, then I beg to ask him, assuming the whole
force of his argument, why is it that, with laws now exactly equal towanl
soiiliers of all the wars, we should come in and say that men sixty years old
and upward who fougiit in tlie Mexican war shall be paid a pension although
no injuries were received by them, and that a much larger number of men
of equal or greater age shall not be paid a farthing unless they lost limb or
health ? It seems to me that the senator's argument would lead him to say
that as to this much larger number at least of Union soldiers, the equities
which he states ajipiied quite as strongly to them.
Mr. Brown. Mr. President —
]\Ir. Blaine, if the senator from Georgia will permit me one word in
further continuation of what the senator from New York has said —
Mr. Brown. I was just going to observe that when 1 yielded the floor to
the honorable senator from New York [Mr. Conkling] to make an inquiry,
I did not expect he would inject a speech into mine. To the senator from
Maine I will yield with pleasure.
Mr. Blaine. I only want to inject a further observation, not a speech, and
that is in continuation of the suggestion made. I do not believe a war was
ever fought, certainly none on this continent, so exclusively by young men
as the Mexican war was. It went with a whirl of enthusiasm through the
Southwest of this country; the young men everywhere flocked to the stand-
ard, and I presume that per rnpHn there never was a more irresistible army
than marched into Mexico; full of enthusiasm, full of fire, full of youth.
596 APJ»ENDJX.
venture to say, taking tlie age of the survivors, — I am only repeating, prob-
ably showing the other side what has been said already, — that you can find
double the number of men over sixty years of age who served in the war for
tlie Union that you can find of men who served in the war with Mexico, —
double the number.
]\Ir. Conkliug. Now at least double.
Mr. Brown. Mr. President, I have listened with patience and with a great
deal of interest to the remarks made by the honorable senator from Xew
York and the honorable senator from Maine. I have been entertained by
the ingenuity .with which they have presented their argument; and I have
no lie.sitation in answering. My reply is, it will be time enough to meet and
act on those questions when tliey come before the senate.
When the senators introduce an amendment here, which they have not
done, to limit the period of the age at which a soldier who served in either
of the wars shall draw a jjension, 1 may then be prepared to say something
on that subject. If the lionorable seuator from Kew York, for instance,
chooses now to introduce an amendment to pension a soldier of the war for
the Union who is sixty-five or seventy years of age, I may or may not be
found voting with him. If he chooses to intioduce an amendment here that
a soldier who served in the war against Mexico shall not be pensioned until
he has arrived at a certain age, I may or may not be willing then to vote
with him. But no such question as that which the honorable senators have
pressed on the consideration of the senate is now before us. I am discussing
the bill with the amendments submitted ; and I am replying to the argu-
ments which have been made on those amendments. I say that the cases of
the Union soldiers and the soldiers of the Mexican war are not parallel ;
because there were about two millions of men in the Union army and about
one hundred thousand, I believe, in the army against .Mexico; and the pro-
portion of old men in the Union army that served any length of time may
not have been much greater than in the Mexican war ; but I presume it was
something greater, because they were called out sometimes for mere local
service for thirty days; and I give the senators the benefit of all that; but
I say that does not affect the question we are now discussing. I will meet
the question presented by the two able senators when it comes iu shape for
action before the senate.
The time has come when I think it is proper to pension the soldiers of the
war against Mexico and the Indian wars; and when amendments come up
as to limiting the period of time or the age when they shall have it, I will
then consider that question. When interrupted by the three honorable sen-
ators I was discussing the amendment of the senator from Maine, by which
he proposes to pension in the case of the soldiers against Mexico only those
who are indigent ; and I was attempting to show the senate that that was
an exception never made heretofore in a general pension bill, and that it
was not a proper one to make against the men who had performed the feats
of gallantry and had achieved the grand results that the men did who fought
against Mexico. That is about what I desired to say upon that point.
Now, Mr. President, a few remarks upon another point.
The honorable senator from New York [Mr. Conkliug], it is true, did
not say that the senators on this floor who fought on the Confederate side of
the late war, which he terms the war of the rebellion, sit here by the grace
of the Government, of the senators on the other side, or of the party to
which the honorable senator belongs; but why, let me ask that honorable
senator, was it necessary to throw out the idea on that point, that we sit
here under circumstances where the title to our seats might at least by im-
plication be questioned ?
APPENDIX. 507
The honorable senator in his interrogatories to the senator from Texas
desired to know whether the result achieved by the Union army in the pres-
ervation of the Union was not much greater, more grand and glorions than
the result achieved by the soldiers in the war against Mexico. On this
point [ desire to say that I mnst suppose now that Providence overruled
our efforts to secede from the Union, and I presume a wise Providence had
a grand object in thnt result, and, if He had, He will doubtless continue to
develop His designs until the achievements of the Union army in restor-
ing the Union may be above comparison with the achievements of any otiier
army that ever went into the field. If I am right as to the Divine will in
this matter, then I trust these grand and glorious results may be perpetual,
and may bring us with good government, unbounded wealth and unlimitid
prosperity.
But why, let me ask, are we thus told by the senator from New York,
gently, delicately, mildly, that we hold title to our seats here by grace ?
Your armies fought, as you claimed, for the preserv.ition of the Union; you
could not preserve it without representatives from all the States in this
chamber. The Constitution of our fathers, the compact of union of our
fathers, requires that each State shall have two representatives of her own
free choice in this chamber; and I care not how long a State has been in
rebellion, when she lays down her arms and you refuse to permit her sena-
tors to come back into this Senate and occupy their seats you do that which
you did not profess to do during the war ; you destroy the Union of the
Constitution by refusing to permit the different departments of the Govern-
ment to perform the functions required by the Constitution.
The State of Georgia has a right to two senators on this floor under the
Constitution of the country, and they hold their seats here by the grace of
no political party, of no government, of no department of government, and
of no other power on the face of this earth except a guarantied right under
the Constitution of the United States. We sit here as a matter of right,
and not as matter of grace.
True, we attempted to go out of the Union. I grant it. I was a seces-
sionist, earnest and active ; I mince nothing about it. Georgia sent about
one hundred regiments into the field against you, organized by me as gov-
ernor of my State or called in under the conscript act of the Confederate
States, which, as all know, I did not approve. AVe fought you honestly.
We were as earnest, as honest, as bold, and as gallant as you were in the
struggle. We believed we were right.
Mr. Kirk wood. And believe it yet?
Mr. Brown. Yes, sir ; I believe it yet. I say we were right on princi-
ple at the time. I will give the senator the full benefit, and then I will say
frankly to the senator from Iowa two great questions brought the war about.
They were slavery and our differences on the riyht of secession. Two great
questions, the drscussion and agitation of which shook this country from
centre to circumference. Bold men, enthusiastic men, I may say patriotic
men, each believing they were right advocated their own ground with zeal
and ability.
We of the South believed we had a right to slavery guarantied by the
Constitution of our fathers. The people of New England and Old England
imported the slaves. You did not find it profitable to continue to use
them, and you sold them to our fathers. As you did not find it profitable
and it could be made profitable in the south, you sold them to our fathers,
took their money, which you put into brick and mortar, factories, shipping
and other profitable investments that built you up and made you a great
people. I would detract nothing from your merits. I admire your industry.
598 ArPEXDIX.
] admire your educational institutions, and I admire your prosperity, and
wish yuu well in it.
Your people, alter the importation of slaves had ceased, became dissatis-
fied with slavery when we became prosperous with it, and without going
over the ground so often occupied, which I do not intend to do here, suffiie
it to say we reached the point where you had elected a Prisidnnt on a sec-
tional issue against the extension of slavery, and we of tl'e South thought
we saw in this no other alternative than the ultimate downfall of slavery,
or the exercise of what we considered the inherent right of secession and
withdrawing from the Union.
On this issue you resorted to arms to compel us to remain in the Union.
We met you in the high court of your own choice, knowing that on the
issue of that litigation was involved the qtiestion of slaveiy as well as the
right of secession. I believed then and I believe now that the right of
secession was inherent in the several States, but when we staked it upon
the issue as joined we were bound honorably and in good faith t" abide by
lhe judgment of that highest of human tribunals, the vliima ratio regmn.
The result of that litigation in that higli court of last rest rt was the arbi-
trament of the sword that slavery wiis abolished, perpetually, forever abol-
ished, and must always remain abolished, and that ours is an indestructible
Union of indestructible Statt-s. And as I said in the senate the other day,
while I would have given my life then to maintain our institution of slavery
believing it was for the best interests of both races, morally, politically,
socially, and religiously, yet, if by turning my hand over to-day I could re-
instate it I would not do so. I accept the result, feel bound bj' the judg-
ment, and shall never move for a new trial. And 1 say the same as to the
question of secession; I consider it forever settled.
I did think a State had the right to secede, and still think it had, but the
decision of that high court, as already stated, was against the right and
against my judgment of the right, and I feel bound by that decision, which
settled the question finally, perpetually, forever.
Now, will the senator from Iowa please put that with the other answer?
That is where I stand. I hold that a great war like the late war between the
States always settles something. The war of the Revolution settled some-
tiiing. We went into that war the subjects of Great Britain ; we came out
a free country, with free and independent States. There was no question
that the English government had the right to control us as colonies under
her charters before that war. It is equally clear that she has no right to do
it now. WhyV Because the war settled that question and settled it for-
ever. It settled it against England ; it settled it in our favor, and we are
no longer the subjects of the British Crown. In this view of the subject it
must be admitted that wars do often legislate, or at least they decide dis-
puted rights. \
!Mr. Kirk wood. Will the senator allow me?
]\lr. Brown. Not this moment. The parallel, to some extent, of the war
of the Kevolution is the war of the rebellion, as you term it, and as we nuist
all term it on account of our failure. At the time we did not so consider it.
If we had succeeded we would have been patriots and heroes, but having
failed we were rebels ; consequeiitly we must accept the term " the war of
the rehellion." That war settles it permafently and absolutely that slaveiy
is dead and that the right of secession is lost and gone forever, just as the
war of the Revolution settled the fact that we were no longer colonists of
the English government. But while that was true, it did not settle the fact
that the States liad no rights in the Union. It settled and settled jierpet-
ually, the question of our right to go out. That will never be contested
APPENDIX. 599
again, but we stand with whatever reserved rights we originally had in the
Union under the Constitution, with the perfect right of State representation
upon thi^ floor, without favor or grace from any quarter, and with the
perfect right of local self-government as practiced by the fathers, limited
only by the npw amendments to the Constitution. And so has the Supreme
Court of the United States in effect decided since the war.
M;iny of the senators on the other side were Whigs originally, and I will
admit that we stand to-day in this Government more nearly upon the
original platform of the Whig party than that of the Democratic party, to
which I belong and in whose fold I was reared. We cannot now stand to
the full extent upon the doctrines of Mr. Jt-ffersou and Mr. Calhoun, be-
cause the war, so far as the right of secession is concerned, has settled that
against us; but we can stand upon the doctrines of Clay, Jackson, and
Webster as to the rii^hts of the States. And there is where I think we do
stand, and where all States and parties should continue to stand.
Now a word further in reference to our right to be here. I admit at the
end of the war, when we were the vanqui>hed you were the conquerors,
and I as an original secessionist, believing we had gone out of the Union
and had been conquered, admitted your right to dictate the terms as con-
querors.
Wiien President Johnson committed the great mistake of not calling
Congress together and submitting his plans to them before he attempted
to reconstruct the Southern States, and dictated his terms, I advised our
peojile instantly to accept them. Why? Because as I undei'stood it we
had .seceded and you had made war upon us, and in that war you were the
conquerors, and you had a right to dictate the terms; and as the President alone,
in the absence of Congress, represented the conquerors, 1 bowed to his dic-
tation. We had no one else to appeal to.
When Congress assembled, and the Republican party, being largely in the
majority, repudiated his action and took tlie matter in hand, you dictated
terms that we of the South thought very hard ; but hard as I thought they
were, as a matter of necessity and because there was no etcnpe IrDin it, I
advised our people at once to recognize your authority, acquiesce, and
promptly comply with your dictation. We had tried resistance to your author-
ity when we liad nearly half a million of gallant men under arms, and by your
superior numbers and resources you had decimated our ranks and compelled
us to surrender. At the end of the struggle you had, I bt'lieve, over twelve
hundred thousand troops organized and on your muster rolls, in service and
ready for service. Having failed to make efi'ective resistance while our
armies were in the field, I saw no hope of it after tliey had surrendered and you
remained armed and equipped in all the plenitude of your power. In this
state of the case I was satisfied the wisest thing our people could do was to
agree with the adversary quickly. I tiiought it of tiie first importance to
gt^t back into the Union and get rightful representation in Congrtss as
States, even upon the unjust terms of your dictation. And I so advisid
our people.
It is true I went through a hard ordeal on account of that advice, but I
have never yet I'egretted it, because I thought it was best for my section
and best for the whole country. And I think it will be generally admitted
that time has proven the correctness of my judgment. 1 then stood upon
the platform of acquiescence in the reconstruction measures dictated by
Congress. I still stand there. The Democratic party of the whole Union
stands thei'e to-day, and has stocMJ there for the last eight years. I suppcnted
Grant in 1868. The national Democratic party supported Greeley in l^l'I.
It seemed to me we were then together again. And I have constantly acted
600 APPENDIX.
with them since then. But at that time other eminent gentlemen differed
with me. They were honest as I was. I impugn the motives of nobody.
I only speak ot the history of those events. I am aware, gentlemen, tliat
you considered us still very rebellious, because the section to which 1 be-
longed, the States lately in rebellion, did not instantly acquiesce in every-
thing you dictated. Let us look }it tiiis a little and see if you ought not to
have viewed our course with a little more fairness, not to say charity. It
seems to me justice required that in passing upon our acts you should have
taken into the account our true condition and the great embarrassments of
our situation.
We may have made a great mistake in going into the war. I think, how-
ever, there was no other way on earth to get rid of the slavery question. It
was only a question whether we would fight it out or our children would
have to fight it out. Be that as it may, we went into it a wealthy people.
We lost by the results of the war over two thousand million dollars' worth
of slaves. We supported our own armies for four years out of our
substance. It is true the Confedeiate government and the States issued
bonds and notes, but at the end of the war you required us to repudiate
them absolutely ; and I admit you had a shadow of reason for tliat. Jt was
said there were Union men in those States, and Union inen had a right to
go theie and settle, and that no Union man should be taxed for the purpose
of paying the war debts of the Confederate States. That was the most
feasible grounds on which you put it. Sufiice it to say that you required us
to repudiate those obligations, and the result was as stated, we supported
our armies for four years out of our own substance.
Then we returned to the Union as soon as you would let us. It is true
we were in rather an awkward dilemma for a time. During the war you
said we had no right to go out; that we never were out; that our ordinances
of secession were nullities; that we were all the time in the Union. Well,
we surrendered, after we had made as gallant a fight as we could, and we
came back with our representatives ready to acquiesce in your theory, and
in good faith resume our place in the Union, and you refused to admit us.
You said we were in while we were fighting you, but we found we were out
wdien we laid down our arms. However, after a long struggle you did
admit us, but on what terms? You, by the fourteenth constitutional aniend-
, ment and the reconstruction acts, disfranchised every man who had held
office and taken an oath to support the Constitution from voting for dele-
gates to the conventions held under the reconstruction acts, and after that
period, not from voting, but from holding office until relieved by Congress.
AVell, now look at that. You will at least admit that the people of the
South were a g.illant people. And }ou can readily imagine how keenly they
felt terms of that character. They thought it was hard, even cruel, that you
should impose such terms ; but you did impose them. Furthermore, when
you finally let us back into the Union, we of course had to assume our part
of the expenses of the war on your side. In other words, in proportion to
our means we had to pay our part of the debt contracted for the sujiport of
the Union armies, and not only so, but we have to p;iy our part of the very
large sum that is now annually appropriated to pension Union soldiers, and
I grudge not a dollar of it to them, for they wvre gallant men fighting for
their honest convictions. On the other hiunl 1 tliink you should f-ympatliize
with the poor maimed soldier who on our side felt that lie was fighting in as
sacred a cause as yours, and believed he was right, who can draw no pension
because he was on the weaker side.
But that was not all. You set our slaves free as I have said, and then very
soon after that, you put the ballot in their hands to go to the polls by the
APPENDIX. 601
side of those who had lately been their masters and owners, and exercise the
elective franchise.
Now I beg senators to remember that all these things tal<en together were
very trying to a gallant people. A people who iiad gone into the war from
honest conviction that they were right, who had lost in the contest under cir-
cumstances like these, would very naturally feel the defeat and the terms im-
posed by the conqueror keenly, and it would have been remarkable if there
had been no riots, no bloodshed, no lynch law, nothing there to disturb the
quiet of society. It is only remarkable, when we think of all we had to undergo
in the reconstruction period, and the losses of the war, and the irritations grow-
ing out of it, where every family had lost a father, a brother, or a son, to say
nothing of property, not that we should have had so much of disorder, but
remarkable that we did not have more of it. Place yourselves in our situa-
tion, with our misfortunes, and tell me if you think your people would have
acted with greater moderation or less of violence.
Now the senator from Kansas [Mr. Ingalls] tells us that if this Bill passes
we put upon the pension-rolls a portion of the old Mexican soldiers and the
soldiers of the Indian wars who fought in the war of the rebellion under the
rebel flag. I have no doubt that will be so, because they were as gallant a
body of men as you ever knew when they fought under the Union flag. And
when their section was invaded, and they were satisfied they were ri-iht, they
rallied to arms and tl ey did fight like heroes under the rebel Rug. But, after
all the hard terms you put upon us, after all we have had to suffer, as just re-
cited, are these gallnnt old heroes to be still further punished? Is the bloody
shirt to wave forever? Is there to be no time when the offence of fighting
gallantly for honest convictions is condoned?
We do not ask you, senators, to pen^ion them because they fought in the
war of the rebellion, but give them pensions because they fought in the war
against Mexico, under the flag of the Union. You say you forgive the balance.
You do not require us now to take the oath that we did not engage in the re-
bellion before we can hold office. You permit the mass of our people to go to
the polls by the side of their former slaves and vote. Why, then, will >ou
make the point here, that these old heroes served in the rebel army, when
asked to give them pensions for the service done upon a foreign field under
the Union flag ? I think senators on the other side will not be so illiberal as
that. It seems to me to be illiberality. Now, w hen the war is over, and you
have dictated tiie terms and enjoyed the results, you might at least be content
to waive further reference to the conduct of these gallant men, who were act-
ing under honest convictions during the late civil ttrife, and give them pen-
sions for valuable services rendered to the Union. Why not?
While on the floor I want to say a few words about another subject that is
not exactly germane to this issue, but I shall not have anuther opportunity,
and as it is in reply to remarks that dropped on the first day I sat in the
senate from seiiators on that side, I ask your indulgence. It is in reference
to the treatment of the colored race by the people of the South since the war.
I know that much was said about sworn testimony as to riots and bloodshed
in the South soon after the war. Much of this testimony was from sources
wholly unreliable and unworthy of credit. But I have admitted that there
was some of it, and have given you the reasons for it. Now allow me to tell
you that that day has passed. In my State — and I can speak more certainly
in reference to it because I am better informed there — we have as orderly a
community to-day as senators from the northern section of the Union have
in theirs. Law and order reign supreme, and he who inflicts an injury upon
a colored man must answer for it to the law. Not oidy that ; the colored race
has behaved well ; they are working well, and we feel most kindly toward
C02 APPENDIX.
them. Why sliould we not? They were raised in our households: the mas-
ter and the niistie.ss of the pieniises Irtd the responsibility of luukiii<:: after
and caring for tliem. That respon.sil)ility added to the coininon dictates of
humanity and our interest in tlieni made us treat them well. There were
some had slaveliolders as there are some bad husbands and guardians in North-
ern St ites; but such was not the rule.
When the war came the newspapers on your side predicted that it must be
of short duration becau-e our negroes would rise in insurrection ;in<l soon dis-
band our armies. Well, I confess we were not without some appreliension on
that subject, and they could have disbanded Lee's army any moment they had
risen in insurrection in tlie rear. I luention tliattoshow you tlie kind!}' under-
standing that existed between the two races at the time. There was no bad
feeling there between them, and during the whole period of the struggle,
where they were not torn away from us by tlie Union armies intervening, they
behaved as well as any race could behave, and I take pleasure in testifying
to it.
When General Sherman invaded the territory of my State and I called out,
in addition to the very large number in Confederate service, the old men up
to fifty-five and the boys down to sixteen, it was an extraordinary levy on
account of the invasion. The whole maidiood of the white race was in the
martial field and the wh'ile manhood of tlie colored race was in the corn-field
and the cotton-field. They had it in their power to disband our ainiies. but
they did not choose to do it, and when the news would come of one of Lee's
or Stonewall .Jackson's brilliant movements and splendid victories, I iiave seen
them thi'ow their caps high into the air and shout for joy over it. The only
inquiry was, " How is iNLissa John or ^Lassa Tom ? Is he out safe ? " Hence
I say we have no reason to feel unkindly toward them.
Then agaiu at the end of the war when you gave them the ballot by our
side, without education, without training, without any state of jnobation, it
was certainly a dangerous experiment. AVe anticipated, it is true, great
trouble, and we did have trouble, because that class ot men called carpet-bag-
gers, who were adventurers, who had no stake at home, came down and took
charge of tliein and often misled and deceived them, and in that way we had
trouble ; but take it altogether they behaved then — and I take pleasure in testi-
fying to it — better than probably almost any other race w.iuld have done under
similar circumstances. Then I say we are not hostile to the colored race.
We are their friends and they are our friends.
Now. a little further. Soon after the war, and during the recoastruction
period, the question of their education canie up. It was a very vexed question.
The leaders of the two races came together when the first Legislature under
the reconstruction acts was in session — and a considerable prop<nti()n of it
was colored — to confer on that subject as to what was best to be done. I
recollect a deleu'ation of them came to my office — I was then on the supreme
bench as chief justice of my State — and asked my advice about it. and 1 know
they asked the advice of other gentlemen very freely. I said, "We cannot
have mixed schools; you build a school-house for your chihben on one hill,
and we will build for ours upon another, and we will divide the money with
you honestly and faithfully ; you shall have your honest pro rata according
to the number of children yon have within the school a^re, and thou^di we have
to pay it — ami as a people we are left very poor — we believe it right that you
have your part of it, and we will see that you get it." At the time we could
not nuike hirge appropriations for that purpose, but we di<l the best we could
and divided the fund fairly. It has since increased till I see by the last report
of our able State school commissioner we now raise aud apply to public schools
in our State about $iUU,OOU annually.
APPENDIX. G03
iMr. Teller. I wish to ask the senator what L"_t;i>latare he speaks of ?
Mr. Brown. I speak of the Reconstruction Legislatuie, the one immedi-
atoly after the Reconstruction convention.
I\ir. Teller. The senator, I suppose, does not spenk of the Legislature
that assembled before the ballot was given to the colored people in his State?
IVIr. Brown. Before what, sir?
Mr. Teller. You had a session of the Legislature before the colored people
were given the baliot, had you not?
Mr. Brown. Yes, there was a session of the Legislature under the Johnson
government, as you may term it.
;Mr. Teller. In the L<'gi.->lature that assembled after reconstruction the
negroes had control of the Legislature by their numbei's, had they not?
Mr. Brown. No, sir ; there was not more than a third ; I do not remember
the exact number, but my recollection is there was not quite a third of the
members who were colored men. The white men had the control of the
Legislature.
The question came up also as to the educatinn of their sons at college, and
they asked what about that. We said to them, "In the present state of feel-
ing here if you send your sons to college with ours, there will be trouble and
probably it will break up the college, but we will build you a college; select
your place ; we will appropriate money out of the treasury to consti'uct your
buildings for you, and we will appropriate exactly the same amount annually
to your college that we do to our own, or if you will adopt a college that a
noble ciiaritable society of New England has already located in Atlanta, and
they will waive the denominational feature, we will adopt that as the colored
college of the State, and we will make the appropriation to it.
Prior to that time we had appropriated annually $8,000 to our State
University. That year we appropriated '$8,000 each to the college for
tlie whites and the college for the colored. A colored member went into
the Legislature and moved that the schools be kept forever separate. A
white member thereupon moved that the colored race should have their fair
proportion of the fund. Both propo.sitions were adopted and a fair division
was made. It was just and it was right. It was true one of the executives
of the State since did recommend that the $8,0u0 a year to the coloied col-
lege be discontinued for what he considered good reasons, but after tlie ques-
tion had been thorougldy canvassed in the Legislature the appropriation was
made by a majority so overwhelming that there was scarcely any division
upon it. Then when our convention of 1877 met, which framed our present
Constitution, they incorporated into it the fundamental principle that the
State should continue to make suitable appropriations to maintain a colored
college.
The city of Atlanta maintains a system of public schools. It employs
sixty-odd teachers in the public schools. They are paid out of the treasury
by taxation of the people. Part of the schools were built for the colored
race and part for the white, and they have had equal justice there all the
whde, and there is no complaint whatever; at least I hear none, and I have
been a memlier of the board since its organization. Therefore I say the col-
o ed people are satisfied. We have given them fair play in the educational
system of the State throughout.
We employ the colored people. They are the best laborers we can get.
You may talk about German immigration, Chinese immigration, or any other
immi^iration into the State, I would not give the negro as a laborer in the
cotton-field for any man of any race. They are laboring there faithfully and
we are paying them justly, and we intend to continue to do so. Many of
them are accumulating property. We are glad of it. W^e feel kindly toward
604 APPENDIX.
them. We wish them well. You made them citiz'iis and we now wish to
aid them to be good citizens, and to become useful members of society. To
that end we shall do all in our power.
I know I should beg the pardon of the senate for making this digression,
as it is not germane to this particular debate; b>it while ou the floor I have
asked the privilege, because I think some honorable senators on the other
side the other day, from the tenor of ihvu- speeches, whatever may have been
the case in the past, did not understand the facts of the case or the relations
as they exist between the two races in our State at the present time.
Now, Mr. President, I have gone through substantiidly what I desired to
say. 1 have already said that we are payinir our part of the taxes to pension
your wounded soldiers, and we do not grudge it to ihem, though we dteply
deplore the fact that ours have no pensions. The only chance, probably, for
the South to have a little in return is for you to give pensions to the.-e old
Mexican veterans, and veterans of the Indian wars. I know senators on the
other side cannot be charged with want of generosity ; but, I ask, is it gener--
ous in the present state of the case to refuse a little pittance to those men
who composed that grand army of invasion of Mexico, the superior of which,
according to its numbers, has never been known upon the planet that we in-
habit? I appeal to senators to withdraw the objection, and, at least, do that
much for the men who served so gallantly under the flag of the Union so long
ago, both in the Indian wars and the JNlexican war, and do not lay to their
account th(^ fact that, pursuing their honest convictions, they have since served
their own States and their own section in what you term the war of the re-
bellion. It seems to me, after all that has been condoned and all we have
suffered, that might be passed over on this occasion, and that your magna-
nimity might prompt you to act liberally toward them.
When we returned to the Union we did so in good faith. The question of
the rii^ht of secession is settled forever, and with its settlement our faith is
pledged to stand by and defend the Constitution and the Union. In the field
you 'foniul the Southern armies to be brave men, and brave men are never
treacherous. Should our relations with foreign powers at any time involve
this government in war, the people of the North will have no reason to com-
plain of the promptness, earnestness, and gallantry with wiiich the people of
the Southern States will rally around the old flag and bear it triumphai:tly
wherever duty calls. If that emergency were now upoti us, the comrades in
arms of Sherman and Johnston, who once confronted each other with such
distinguished heroism, would rally together in the cause of the Union, and,
vying with each other, woidd perform such prodigies of valor as the world
has seldom witnessed. This being the present condition of the country, the
present feeling of the great masses of people on each side, let us do justice to
each other, restore cordial and fraternal relations, and folding up the bloody
shirt let us bury it forever beyond the reach of resurrection : and let us unite
in the enactment of such laws as will show to the world that we are once
more, not in name only but in reality, a united people, ready to do equal and
exact justice to all. And let us move forward grandly and gloriously in united
efforts to restore to every section of the Union substantial, growing, material
prosperitv; and we will then bring to the whole country peace, happiness, and
fraternal'relations. This seems to me to be a cons-immation devoutly to be
wished by the patriotic people of all parts of the Union.
APPENDIX. e05
Speech of Hon. Joseph E. Brown, in the United States Senate,
Wednesday, December 15, 1880, on the Educational Fund.
On the bill (S. No. 133) to establish an educational fund, and apply a portion of
the proceeds of the public lands to public education, and to provide tor the more com-
plete endowment and support of national colleges for the advancement of scientific
and industrial education.
"This bill, reported unanimously by the Committee on Education and Labor, pro-
poses to consecrate the proceeds of sales of public lands to the education of the people.
It will not interfere with the rights of pre-emption nor with entries for home-
steads, and leaves unimpaired the claims of any State to its percentage of the sales of
public lauds. As the amount of such sales will hereafter be small, it is proposed to
add to this educational fund the net proceeds of all receipts for patents after de-
ducting the expenses of the Patent Otiice. The entire fund is then to be invested in
United States bonds and the interest annually appointed to the several States and
Territories upon the basis of population between the ages of five and twenty-five
years, except that for the first ten years the apportionment is to be made according
to the numbers of their population, respectively, of ten years old and upward who
cannot read and write ; with the further provision that one-third of the income from
the fund shall be annually appropriated to the more complete endowment and sup-
port of colleges established, or such as may hereafter be established in accordance
with the act of Congress approved in IStiS, until the annual income of each shall
amount to §30,000 ; and thereafter all beyoud tliat sum is to be devoted to the educa-
tion of the children of the several States and Territories, including the District of
Columbia, between the ages of six and sixteen years. Authority is also to be given
for the acceptance of any sums which may be donated for these objects by will or
otherwise."
Mr. Brown said :
^Ir. President: J have listened with a great deal of pleasure to the able
and eloquent argument made by the lionorable senator from Vermont [Mr.
JNIorrill] in favor of the passage of the bill now before the senate. We live
under a republican form of government. The stability of tliat government
depends, in my opinion, upon the virtue and intelligence of the people of
the United States. We are exposed all tlie time to tests of the peimanency
and stability of this form of government. Wlien we had a sparse population
of but a few millions scattered over a very large territory, with no large
masses of people congregated together in great cities or centres, we were in
a condition better adapted to the maintenance of republican government
than we shall be when we have a hundred millions of population crowded in
the centres and upon the older settled portions of our territory, where large
masses can congregate upon short notice. In that condition, if we have
large masses of ignorance, understanding nothing about tlie form or prin-
ciples of the government, we have little to expect in the future. It becomes,
tlierefore, important that we should educate the mass of the American peo-
ple if we expect to perj^etuate American institutions.
Kot only is this true as far as it relates to tlie Government, but the
public interest requires that we have the whole intellect of the people
developed and cultivated for the purpose of building up and improving
society. Neither the intellect of this country nor of any other country
is confined to children born of the nobility, the aristocracy, or the
wealtliy classes. Neither Disraeli nor (Jladstone was born of tlie nobility,
and yet to-day the destinies of England and of the British Empire are con-
trolled by the intellect of these two competitors. Though born neither of
the nobility nor of the royal family, they say what the Crown shall do, what
the nobility shall do, and what the commons shall do.
So it is in this Government. The intellect of the people of this country is
not confined to the sons of the aristocracy or the wealthy classes. George
Washington was a surveyor; Benjamin Franklin was a printer; Roger
Sherman, 1 believe, was a shoemaker ; Andrew Jacksou was a penniless or-
606 APrEXDix.
phan ; Henry Clay was a mill boy ; Daniel Webster was tlie son of poor par-
entage ; Andrew Juhnson was a tailor, who when married could neither read
nor write ; hi? wife taught him to read ; lie wasself-ediiCMted and self-made ;
General Grant was a tanner; the great commouer, Alkxandkr II. Ste-
phens, was a poor orphan boy ; Abraham Lincoln split rails and labored in
his youth with his hands for his living ; and 1 believe the Presidenlelect, Gen-
eral Garfield, was born of poor parentage.
Then it is true that in this country as well as every oiher the intellect of
the country is not confintd to the sons of the wealthier or the ruling classes;
and I maintain that the State has a right to have the intellect of the wljole coun-
try developed out of the mass of the wealth of th*' country and brought into
action for the protection of society and the building up and development of
the country, llow can ihis be done ? Only by the education of the children
of all classes of society. I have no doubt many a man has lived in the
United States, of intellect as grand as those I have mentioned, who has died
unknown to fame. Why so V Becnuse no circumstance has led to the first
stage of develojiment that has made the person himst-lf conscious of his own
powers. Uhiit bright boy has never been sent to school ; he has never been
taught even the first rudiments of a common education ; he has been con-
fineii to labor in the backwoods, in the factory, in the shop, or in the mines,
and while he may have been regarded there as one of the most intellectual
of his comrades, there has been no development that showed his powers to
either him or them, or that gave the country the benefit of those powers.
Educate the whole mass of the people and you have the benefit of all this
power. Let me illustrate. The honorable senator who has just taken his
seat was too modest to refer to it because he is from Xew England, imt we
find a noted example there. When the Puritans, as we term them, landed
in this country and located themselves on the bleak shores of New England,
they commented building up society by the organization of churches and
the building of houses of worship, and they located the school-house near
the church. They established a system of common schools that was intended
to embrace the whole population and to give every child an oppoitunity to
have a common education. They commenced early and laid deep the foun-
dations of their universities and colleges. The re-ult has been that thev have
endowed and built up colleges of a very high order, where immense numbers
of the young men of this country liave been educated.
Go out through the mighty West and over the Territories to the Pacific
Ocean, and what do you find ? Where was the member of Congress or the
senator in this hall educated ? Usually at a New England college. AVhere
was the minister of religion, or the village doctor, or the lawyer, or the local
politician educated V Aiost of them in the New England colleges. 'J'iius
they carried New England ideas with them all through the West, which have
controlled in the organization of society and the legislation of States, and in
that way Nesv England may be said to liave dictated laws to the continent.
Her ideas, taught to the youths that have gone out West and scattered all
over this broad land, have been carried along and ingrafted upon society, and
we are obliged to admit that they have done a great deal in coiitrolliug the
destinies of the country.
It was not only so with New England ; but there is another very noted ex-
ample worthy of our attention. 1 refer to the Kingdom of Prussia. At the
time Napoleon the First led his armies over Eurojie like an avalanche, and
swept down kingdoms and empires before him, Prussia was a third-cla-ss
power, devastated by the ravages of war. At the end of the great
struggle, in making preparations to buihl up society, she early took into
account the importance of educating the whole mass of her people. She en-
APPENDIX. e07
dowed universities libeially ; she established a system of public schools
throughout tlie entire kingdom, and slie not only by lier h-gislation froai
time to time nnide provision for the education of all her children, but she
made their t-ducation compulsory. She permits no father uho has been the
means of bringing offspring into society to say, "I will not permit my child to
be educated ; 1 will imt send him to school." She says : " 'J'he State has an
interest in it and it shall be done." The law requites the parent to send the
son, and then the State gives him the rudiments of an education. He must
have it; the good of society requires it ; the law compels it.
How did it work V From a third-iate power Prussia rose rapidly to a
second-rate power; and witliin the last few years the test of strength came
between the Kingdom of Prussia and the Emj'ire set up by Napoleon, when
his successor, a wise statesman, was upon the throne. What was the result 'i
That little third-rate kingdom, overrun by Napoleon the First, had lisen to
be a power iu Europe, and when the struggle came Piussia swept over
France, dethroned tlie monarch, the successor to Napoleon the First, and
dictated terms to Fiance upon her own soil. Why was it so? It niay be
said she had alder generals; that her armies were better handled. There
was another I'eason ; she had a better educated people. Her whole people
were etliicated. Every man felt an iudividtiality in what he was doing, and
then she had all the best intellects of the kingdom educated to fill the differ-
ent places where it was necessary to have ability. A government that
educates all her brightest intellect has greatly the advantage of one that
educates only that portion of her intellect that is born iu the wealthier and
higlier cla-ises of society.
Under the Prussian system, as I understand it, if a boy shows great bright-
ness and is intellectually adapted, with proper training to the position o\ a pro-
fessor of chemistry, he is carried througli the university, and he is fully de-
veloped and educated in that department of science. If anotlier shows great
talent for the military, he is passed through the military department ; and if
he has a master mind, he is made a master of the military piofession ; and
so in each department. Therefore, when Prussia called upon her sons to rally
under her banner, she had l.er ablest intellect cultivated in their lespective
positions, and they were ready to step forward and fill each place with a first-
class man. This was not so with the French, 'i'hey have colleges and uni-
versities of the highest order; they have education of the highest order; but
they have not the whole mass educated as they are in Prussia. There may
have been some of the ablest generals by nature and some of the most use-
ful men that the army could have required in other positions who were in
the ranks, wliose power was not known because they had not been developed
by education, and therefore the state lost the benefit of their mental powers.
I say the state has the right to the aid of all the mental power of its people,
audit can have it in no other way than by the education of all the masses of
the people of the state. And this should be done by the aid, as far as neces-
sary, of all the wealth of the state.
Take our own country, to-day. In the backwoods, among the mountains,
peradventure away out among the Kocky Mountains, or down in the wire-
grass of the South, there is many a bri^^ht-eyed boy, who has intellect of the
highest order, in one of the humblest cottages or cabins of the land. And
there, if neglected, he may stay and work his- way through life with no op-
portunity to show the power he po.-sesses. But send him to the common
school and let the rough be knocked off that diamond until it begins to glit-
ter, and you cannot then stop him. He will go forward, and the more the
diamond is polished the brighter it will sparkle, till it shines out in all its
brilliant splendor and magnificence. But this could not have been done
608 APPENDIX
without education enough to show what was in the boy. Therefore, with-
out the education of the mass of the people and of the whole people, you
cannot have the heuetit of the whole intellect of the country brougiit to bear
in the building up of society and the development of the resources and pow-
er of the state.
But there is another good reason, Mr. President, why those who come
from my section of the Union should advocate this measure. The honorable
senator from Vermont [Mn. INIorkill] referred to the fact of the large
illiteracy of the people of the United States. He did not carry it out and
show to what States or sections this illiteracy applies most. I regret to say
it is from my own section. There are several reasons why it is so. Under
our old system of society we looked more to the education of the ruling class
than we did to the education of the whole mass, in otlier words, we did not,
as they did in Xew England, furnish the money to establish systems of pub-
lic schools where all the children could be educated, but we educated our
children tlirough the means of private schools, where only the wealthier
classes and those who were well-to-do could send tlieir children. Conse-
quently there was a larger number of illiterate persons in our society than
there was in the society of X^w England or any other State that had a
properly endowed public school system.
But this was not all. We had there a large slave population, amounting
in round ntimbers to four millions at the time they were emancipated. Un-
der our system as long as we kept and used them as slaves it was legarded
unsafe to educate them. Therefore their education was neglected, and it
was a very hazardous experiment when they were made citizens without
education.
The honorable senator from Rhode Island [General Burxsidf] referred
to the condition of the Scotch people at a time when they were not educated,
and told us how degraded they were and how they were looked down upon,
and to the elevation that tliey afterward attained when by a common-school
system they were educated up to a high point. Let me follow his example
and trace something of the history of another race of peo{>le. Take the
African race, and go back two and a half centuries, and where were they
and what were they? They were heathens ; they lived on the continent of
Africa in a state of the wildest ignorance and most savage barbarity. The
different tribes engaged from time to time in warfare, and in many instan-
ces the rule was indiscriminate slaughter; but if they took prisoners they
were spared, out of no mercy to the prisoner, but because he was valuable
to them to be sold as a slave. At the period when this country was first set-
tled those wars were raging on the continent of Africa, and it was then con-
sidered, not only by the tribes themselves but by Old England and New
England, that they were proper persons to be made slaves. Conijianies were
organized fur the purpose of engaging in the importation and traffic, and it
is said that the reigning queen and afterward the kings of England owned
stock in tho?e companies. In that day it was believed to be right.
I do not mention this subject now with a view of bringing up any mooted
question about slavery, but I am speaking of the history of the negro. All
then considered slavery was right. Tiie negroes were imported into this
country as slaves and sold into slavery from British vessels and the vessels of
Now England. They were sold to us in the South. We bought them, we
believed it was right to buy them, and they believed it was right to sell tiiem.
In a word, at that time the negro was considered as oidy fit to be a slave, and
fit for nothing else, and he occupied a much more degraded position than the
Scotch did ai the time referred to by the honorable Senator from Rhode
Island.
APPENDIX. G09
And just here permit me to refer to a chapter in the history of my own
State. The original charter of the coh)ny of Georurja tnafle it a free State,
and the trustees for a number of years persisted in their refusal to permit ne-
gro slavery or rum to be brougiit into the colony. P'inally it was discovert d
tliat the adjoiiiing colony of South Carolina and other southern colonies that
h id adopted slavery were more prosperous than that of Georgia, and the peo-
l)le froMi the other colonies refu^ed to emigrate to Georg.a and stay there un-
less they were permitted to carry their slaves with them. About that period
in our history, John Wesley and George Whitefield, the two great divines
who under Providence were the founders of Methodism, and who planted the
church on our soil, associated themselves with the colony at Savannah, and
Whitefield established his orphan nsylimi, which was intended to be and was
in fact a noble charity. After considerable effort to sustain it, he came to
the conclusion that it was Ids true interest to purchase a plantation and slaves
in the' colony of South Carolina, which he did, and which he declared did
much to enable him to mauitain his asylum. And this great divine became
one of the ablest and most zealous advocates for the establishment of slavery
in the colony of Georgia. Finally the pressure upon the trustees became so
great that they yielded, and slavery was permitted and soon became an es-
tablished institution. I simply mention this to show that in my own State
shivery was prohibited by law at a time when the people of the mother
country and of New England were importing slaves under the sanction of
law without a question that the traffic was legitimate.
Slavery wa^ found to be nnprofitHble in New England and the Middle
States, and, like every other traffic, it was carried where the commodity was
most needed and would pay best. Consequently the slaves were sold by the
ancestors of the people of New England and the Middle States to our ances-
tors in the South, and the money obtained for them was doubtless invested
in building up your towns, your factories, and your commerce. At that time,
however, neither section believed that the other was doing wrong in engag-
ing in the irajjortation, the traffic, or the use of slaves.
Thus matters passed for a long period. Slavery was recognized by all, and
the savages imported as slaves were trained here in the practices and ideas of
civilization till they were very much elevated in the scale of Christian civil-
ization before slavery was abolished. They were taught not only the prin-
ciples of civilization but the principles of Christianity.
I well recollect, years ago, before the war between the States, in one of the
assemblages of the Presbyterian Church in New York, the Reverend Dr.
Stiles used in substance this noted expression, " the southern church holds
up to the gaze of heaven and earth more converted heathens (referring to
our slaves) than can be shown in heathen lands as the result of the labors of
alt the missionaries of all the Protestant churches combined." Yes. of this
four million people we held up a large number who were converted to Chris-
tianity and reclaimed to civilization. In other words, Providence seems to
have had a great design in this matter. They were brought here as slaves;
indeed they were prisoners and slaves at home and sold as such by their own
people. AVe used them as slaves, and we believed we had the right to do so.
And while they were going through this long training of slavery they were
imi)roving all the time intellectually and morally. But the time came when
the same overruling I'rovidence that pernntted them to be brought here as
slaves determined in His divine decrees that they should no longer be slaves.
And who can say that it is not the design of Providence that the descendants
of those who by the rulers of Africa were sold into slavery, improved and ele-
vated by slavery till they were fit for free' lorn, may not be the instruments
in the hand of God in redeeming Africa from the darkness and thraldom in
39
610 APPENDIX.
which she is now shrouded, and in bringing her to the marvellous light of
Christian civilization'?
But let us notice further the remarkable history of this people. The two
sections of the Union were arrayed in hostility against each other on tlie sub-
ject of slavery. If you of the North had proposed to tax yourselves and pay
us for the slaves, in the then temper we would not have agreed to accept it.
We would have said, " We have constitutional guaranties that we shall hold
theui, and you must not interfere." On the other hand, if it had been pro-
posed to tax the people of the United States to pay for them and liberate
them, the people would have submitted to no such taxation. Therefore that
was impossible. The passions and prejudices on buth sides of the line were
aroused into active play. There was but one way to eradicate slavery, and
that was to tear it out by the roots; and as Providence was working out a
great problem, we were plunged into the war between the States, and the
institution was staked upon the result. Neither side contemplated abolition
at the commencement, but as Providence designed it, the termination of the
struggle was the abolition of slavery.
Here, then, was another step taken in the wonderful development in con-
nection with this race. From having been prisoners of heads of tribes in
Africa and sold by their own people into slavery, and from having gone
through a long period of servitude, the time had couie when Providence de-
termined they should no longer be slaves. But as our friends of New Eug-
lauil and the Northern States had engaged in the importation of them and
had sold then; to us, and made profit by it, and as we had used slavery and
made profit by it, and no section could charge that another was alone respon-
sible, every section and every part of the Union had to bleed for it, and we
all had to bear burdens to get rid of it. But we are rid of it.
When the Constitution of the United States was formed, slavery was not
only tolerated and provision made for the surrendering up of fugitive slaves
to the owner on requisition, but at that time the Slates were not ready to
cut off the in)portation ; those engaged in the traffic wanted to make more
money out of it. 'J'hey were unwilling to give it up, and it was insisted
upon and carried, and incorporated into the Constitution that the importa-
tion should not be abolished prior to the year 1808. So guarded were tiiose
who framed the Constitution on that point that in making provision for its
own amendment, it is expressly provided that that clause shall not be
amended prior to 1808. Tlien negroes were slaves, and slaves were property,
and that property was guarantied to us by the Constitution of the United
States.
But when we went into the struggle of 1861 we were well aware that if \^e
failed we hazarded our title to our slaves, and that abolition was a possibility.
At the end of the struggle, when we suriendered our armies and the then
President of the United States adopted a policy without consulting Congress,
of reconstructing the Union, he required us to call conventions in the South-
ern States; and the Congress having submitted to the States the thiiteenth
constitutional amendment, we adopted it. There was no contest made over
it in the South. The Southern States, as well as the Northern and Western
States, agreed at the end of the struggle that slavery should be abolished ;
and we put into the Constitution a piovision that forever guarantied the
abolition. Then the negro had taken one more step. From a slave he was
a freedinan without the rights of a citizen.
Then followed a pro|)osilion by Congress to the States to adopt the four-
teenth amendment. That amendment declared him to be a citizen. In
other words, it declared all persons born or naturalized in the United States
to be citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.
APPENDIX. 611
Then the negro had made one more advance step. From being a freedman
he was now a citizen. But it was soon found that this was not enough.
Very grave questions were raise iT.-^to whether a race who had been slaves
and thus freed and made citizen} u'df .e entitled to all the rights of the origi-
nal citizens of this country; in o^.ier words, whether they had the right to
vote and hold office; and Congress had to take one more step. That step
was to propose the fifteenth constitutional amendment, which guarantied to
the race the right to vote. Then the negro advanced one further step.
From being a citizen without rights as to voting and holding office he was
made a citizen free and independent, with all the riglits of any other citizen
of the United States. Of course, I mean legal rights. He was made the
legal equal of any and every other citizen of this Union. Social rights must
take care of themselves; neither the Congress nor any other governmental
power can regulate them. But all his legal rights were guarantied. Then
what was the status? Here are four million persons, formerly s-laves, then
freedinen, then citizens without all the rights of citizenship, then fuli-fltdged
citizens with every right of the citizen, turned loose among us, without edu-
cation, incorporated into society as part of the citizens of the United States
and of the States in which they lived.
A grave problem arises here for solution. They must be educated ; but
we are not able to educate them. Why not? We claimed to be a wealthy
people before the war. So we were; but we lost, according to the best esti-
mates, about $2,000,000,000 in the value of our slaves. It was that much
gold value, our own under the Constitution of the United States, which we
lost by the war, and it was gone forever. That impoverished us to that ex-
tent and it was a very heavy draught. Then we had to support the Confed-
erate armies for four } ears without a dollar of help, out of our substance.
True, we issued Confederate bonds and notes ; they were paid out for our
substance, but at the end of the war they were repudiated and they became
as ashes in our hands. We lost, then, not only two billions in slaves, but we
lost about two billions more in the support of our armies for four years.
Then we lost immense amounts in the destruction of property by the armies
outside of what was necessary to feed and clothe them.
But that was not all. At the end of the struirgle we had to return to the
Union and resume our position and take upon ourselves our just proportion,
according to our means, of the war debt contracted by the Government in
the suppression of what is known as the reliellion. Then, I say, with these
draughts upon us we are not able to educate these four millions of people
th;it were turned loose among us. As 1 have already stated, during the pe-
riod of slavery it was not our policy to educate them ; it was incompatible,
as we thought, with the relation existing between the two races. Now that
they are citizens we all agree that it is our policy to educate them. As they
are citizens, let us make them the best citizens we can. I am glad to see
that they show a strong disposition to do everything in their power for the
education of their children.
Then I say the provision of the bill that gives for ten years at least the
advantage to the States where there is most illiteracy is a ju*t and a wise
provision, and I thank the senators from New England and the other wealthier
States for the sense of justice they exhibit in coming forward and showing a
willingness to aid in the education of these people. We all agree that it is im-
portant that they be educated. You will agree with me that we in the Southern
.States are not now able to educate them, and our own children. They were
set free as a necessity of the Union. You so regarded it. Then it is proper
that the Union should come forward, and with its vast resources aid in their
education, and I am glad to s^ee a movement made that looks in that direction.
612 APPENDIX.
I confess I have better hopes for the race for the future than I had when
emancipation took place. Tliey have siiown a capacity to receive education,
and a disposition to elevate themselves that is exceedingly gratifying, not
only to me, but to every right-thinking fijnthern man ; and I wish you to
understand that we harbor no hostility to the race in the South. There are
many reasons why we should not, no good reasons why we should. They
were raised with us; they ])layed with us as children. Under the slaverj'
system the relations were kind. When the war came on it was supposed by
many that they would rise in insurrection and soon disband our armies.
They at no time ever behaved with more, loyalty to us, or with more propriety.
Since the end of the war, when, as we thought, you very unwisely gave them
the ballot, they have exercised the rights of freemen with a moderation that
probably no other race would have done. Therefore I say it is our duty in
the South especially, and I think yours in the North as well, to encourage
them, and, as they are now citizens, to elevate them and make them the best
citizens possible.
But, as I stated a while ago, I have given you a reason why thete is such
a va>t preponderance of illiteracy now in our section. It is not only due to
the fact that we did not have the common-school systems in the Southern
States prior to emancipation, but that the four millions of freedmen were
added to our population as citizens there, without education. Then we must
appeal to you not only now but in future to be liberal toward the Soutli in
aiding in the education of these people. 1 know there have been complaints
that they may have been cheated in some instances at the ballot-box. Igno-
rance may be cheated anywhere. Doubtless, Senators, you have seen the
more ignorant class cheated in your own States. If you would guard against
this effectuJilly in the future, educate them ; teach them to know their rights
and, knowing them, they will maintain them.
It is necessary to educate them, furtliermore, for the reason that they do
not now understand, as ignorance does not anywhere understand, the theory
and form and spirit of our Government. Education will enable them to
understand it. We must give it to them. W^e must teach them what is
the nature of the government, what are the principles of the Constitution of
the United States, and now that we all agree that it is to be perpetual in
future, we must teach them to love the Union and to be ready to stand by
and defend it, and I believe the senators from New England will agree
with me when I say we must teach them also that the Union is a union of
States, and that we must not destroy the States. When the States are
destroyed there is no longer the Union of our fathers. As the Union is to
be indissoluble, the States which form the Union, and without which it
cannot be maintained, must forever remain indestructible, and they must
fonlinue in the exercise of all the reserved rights which they now possess
under the Constitution as it stands, with the aniendnieuts adoj^ted by the
States.
Therefore, it is necessary to teach all citizens, white and colored, and to
teach their children, the importance of maintaining republican institutions
in the purity in which they originally came from the hands of the framers
of our Constitution, and to maintain the ballot-box in its purity also. I
announced in my own State to tlie electors who were to vote on my case
tlie next day, that I was fur a free ballot and a fair count. I want to see
the day come when that will be so everywhere, not only in Louisiana, South
Carolina, Florida, and Georgia, but iu New York, Massachusetts, Ohio, and
Indiana as well. Let it be so everywhere. Let us educate our people,
white and colored, up to the point where they understand the proper use
of the ballot ; then let it be free to all, and let the ballots be fairly counted
APPENDIX. 613
when deposited. Having referred to the struggle that brouglit about the
present state of things, I will add that whatever I may have thought of the
terms you dictated to us, I have accepted them, and I have all tiie while
advocated carrying them out in letter and in spirit in good faith, in practice
as well as in theory. AVhenever the whole mass of the people are educated
there is no danger in doing this. Until they are educate<l there will be
impositions practiced upon ignorance in every section of this country, and
probably in every State in the Union.
The honorable senator from Vermont referred to the great good that was
being done by the appropriation made in 1862 of portions of the public land
to establish agricultural and mechanical colleges in the different States. I
can bear testimony that in my own State that appropriation has been most
beneficial. It was accepted by our State, the land scrip sold, and the
money was delivered to the trustees of the State University, and they con-
nected with our university a college of agriculture and the mechanic arts,
which has been well conducted and residted in great good ; but there were
certain sections of our State not well content with the centralization of it,
as they termed it, in one locality, and it was asked that it be distributed
more justly between the different sections of the State. The trustees of
the university agreed that they would endow a branch college at Dahlonega
in the building of the old United States mint that Congress donated for the
purpose of a school, and they gave $2,000 a year of the interest derived from
the fund toward its support. Since then it has been carried up to $3,500
per annum and we have established three other branches of the university
— one at Milledgeville, one at Cuthbert, and one at Thomasville. Those
branches are colleges of a lower grade than the university. They edncate
girls and boys — we have both sexes there educated — up to tlie point where
they can enter college. For instance, a boy who graduates in one of them
can enter the junior class of our State University, and we have at this time
about eight hundred pupils in those four branch colleges. They are located
in sections where they can be easily reached by our people generally. There
is a cheap mode of board established there. Mess-halls are resorted to, and
it is deemed altogether respectable for a young man to board himself as
best he can and go into the schools. The amount of good they are doing
is incalculable. At Dahlonega the trustees are authorized, on the proper ex-
amination of a young man or young lady in the college, to give a certificate
authorizing him or her to teach in the public schools of the State, and at
the last commencement there were about eighty licensed for teachers.
They go out all over our country and teach three months' schools during
the vacation. In this way they make some money to enable them to go
forward again with their studies. And thus there is a very great amount
of good done by that college, and I should very gladly see as large an addi-
tion as possible made to its endowment.
If we could have two or three other of these branches in different sections
of our State we could add greatly to the present advantages. Doubtless the
same may be true in the other States.
The only real regret I have about this matter is that the fund we shall be
able to raise from the proceeds of the sales of the public lands and from the
Patent Office fees will be too small to meet the demand ; but I trust this is
the entering-wedge, and that we may see our way clear in the future, if this
works well, to do still more for the cause of education.
I know some objection has been raised on the constitutional question.
It has been said that the States alone can take charge of this matter ; that
the Federal Government has nothing to do with the education of the people.
Well, under the strictest rules of construction of the old State-rights school
614 APPENDIX.
prior to tlie war possibly that was so ; but we' do not live under the Constitution
that we lived under then. The amendments made at the termination of
the struggle liave very greatly en]ar>;ed the powers of this government.
Again, 1 think the constitutional objection cannot apply to this bill, for the
reason that it is mainly a proposition to dispose of tlie proceeds of the pub-
lic lands, and so far as those proceeds are concerned there never has been
a time when the Government did not have the right to dispose of them. As
far back as 1836 there was a law passed for the distribution of the surplus
funds in the treasury, and in 1841 to distribute the net proceeds of public
lands, the Congress recognizing the fact that they belonged to the (States.
Then in the organization of new States and Territories large amounts of
the public domain have been set apart for the use of colleges and schools
theie, recognizing the power of Congress to use a portion of the land for
this purpose.
Then, again, the act of 1862, of which I have been speaking, which appro-
priates a certain amount of the public lands in aid of agricultural colleges,
is another use of the public domain for that purpose which has not been
objected to. After all that has been done, why may we not now appropriate
the future proceeds of the public lands and the Patent office to this sacred
purpose V
But I believe there is another provision of the Constitution that may
have some bearing here. " The United States shall guaranty to every
State in this Union a republican form of government " is the language of
the Constitution. If I be right in the position I took in the commencement
of this argument, that this government cannot be perpetuated as a republic
without the education of the whole mass of the people, then to appropriate
money for the education of the masses of the people would be a better mode
of guarantying a republican form of government than to undertake to make
a guaranty by the use of the army and the sword.
I do not think really there is any constitutional difficulty in the way of
making this disposition of the public lands lor this very important purpose,
and it seems to me there is no other possible disposition that can be made
of this fund in the future which can result in anything like the benefit to
the Govertiment and the people of the United States that must result
from the appropriation of it to the purposes of education.
A large proportion of our public domain, which is the property of the people,
has been appropriated by Congress to railroad corporiitions and other pur-
poses, looking to the settlement and development of the Territories. And
while I am not prepared to say that this may at tiie time have been an improper
use of a portion of the public lauds, it seems to me there can be no doubt
that it is better to stop such approjiriations in future and apply the proceeds
of tiieir sale to the sacred purpose of educating the people. AVe will in this
way establish new guaranties for the perpetuation of the Union, the main-
tenance of the riglits of the States, and the future peace and prosperity of
the whole country. Let us give to the whole mass of our people, in all
sections of the Union, the benefit of at least a connnon-school education ;
and let us provide, as in the Prussian system, for a higher development of
the brightest intellects that may be found in the public schools by such
legislation and appropriations as will enable them to prosecute their studies
till they have made themselves masters of the particular art or calling for
which nature seems to have fitted them.
It may be objected that it costs large sums of money to educate our
whole people. 1 admit it; but it is an investment that pays back a heavy
rate of interest. Who is most likely to make money, an educated enlight-
ened people, or an ignorant, degraded people? Contrast the financial cou-
APPENDIX. 615
ditionof New England with that of Mexico, and tell me which accumulates
fastest, an educated, scientific people, or a people who do not enjoy the
benefits of education or science. Tlie surest way to make money is to in-
vest large sums of money in the eilucation of our people and the develop-
ment of the wiiole intellect of the country.
Then let us lay the foundation of a system -which shall be improved and
built up, until the whole mass of the American people have the benefits
that will soon result from it. This is tiie surest way to maintain and per-
petuate our republican system of government, to develop the vast resources
of our country, to encourage and protect the accumulation of wealth and to
transmit the blessings of good government to remotest generations.
Speech of Hon. Joseph E. Brown in the Senate of the United States,
January 24, 1881. on Lands in Severalty to Indians, and the
Question, Is he a Citizen under the Fourteenth Constitutional
Amendment, Discussed.
The Senate having nndpr consideration the Bill (S. No. 1773) to provide for the
allotment of lands in severalty to Indians on the various reservations, and to extend
the protection of the laws of the States and Territories over the ludiaus, and for other
purposes —
Mr. Brown said :
Mr. President : If I understand the amendment offered by the senator from
Massachusetts [Mr. Iloai] it is to confer all the rights of a citizen of the
United States upon an Indian who has received his land on the reservation
of his tribe in severalty under this Bill. I incline very strongly to think that
the Indian who has settled himself upon a homestead is a citizen already,
under the fourteenth constitutional amendment; but if he is not, I am pre-
pared to vote to make him one whenever he takes his land in severalty, and
to give him the rights of a citizen if he lacks anything. The history of our
dealings with the Indians is a sad history. And 1 think we owe something
to them. Wiien the white men, few in number —
Mr. Logan. If the senator will pardon me for a moment, I should like be-
fore he goes on with his remarks to ask permission to ofier an amendment to
the Bill to come in after the last section, so that the amendment may be
printed. I thouglit perhaps tiie discussion would not continue so long as it
has, but as the Bill will probably go over until to morrow I should like to
have the amendment priu'ed. It is in the direction of the senator's remarks,
providing citizenship for the Indians. I ask that the amendment be printed.
The presiding officer (Mr. Garland) in the chair. If there is no objection,
the amendment will be received and ordered to be printed.
Mr. Brown. As I was stating when interrupted by the honorable senator
from Illinois, when the white men appeared, few in number, upon the eastern
shores of this continent the Indians possessed it. They were powerful ; they
were sovereign ; they were the monarchs of this country; and it was by their
toleration that we settled in their dominions. There was no dictating to
them by the persons who first came here to settle on the eastern shores. The
white men asked, may we purchase from you, the owners, a homestead here?
The Indians met them with kindness and hospitality. When justice has been
done to them I believe they have usually been proverbially kind. >.'egotia-
tions were opened and certain tracts of land were conveyed, not by us to them,
but by them to us.
They had the power then at any time to have exterminated the settlements
upon the eastern shores of this continent; and it would have taken armies to
CIG APPENDIX.
plant colonies here that could have sustained themselves. They did not think
proper to do so. By their toleration the wliite pedple poured in and increast d
in numbers until they became most numerous, and then commenced to dic-
tate to the Indians ; and the stronger we became and the weaker they be-
came, the more illiberal and unjust was our policy toward tliera. It reached
a point at a certain stage when it was adjudicated, I believe, by our supreme
court, tliat we owned the whole territory and they were mere occupants. It
is true we then treated them, I believe, as persons, but now the question is
gravely considered in the senate and in the courts whether they are per.-ons
under the fourteenth constitutional amendment. The whole history of our
dealing witli them has, I think, been a history of wrong, mostly on our part.
A distinguished officer of the United States army when approached on this
subject on one occasion said he never knew the Indians violate a treat}', and
he never knew the white men to observe one. Tliis may not be literally true,
but there is too much truth in it. I will not go into a discussion of tlie vari-
ous outrages that have been perpetrated upon them. As our people have ad-
vanced fartlier west and found territory tliey desired occupied by the Indians
we have soon found occasion to get up disturbances or difficulties with them
that led first to war, theii to victory on our part, then to negotiations and a
cession of the territory on their part.
This has been the sad history of our dealings with them. We have grown
stronger and stronger until to-day we number more than fifty million per-
sons. They have been reduced all told as the last report sliows, excluding
Alaska, to 2.55,938.
At the first settlement of the country we were completely in their power,
and they could dictate any terms they pleased to us. And when justly dealt
by, tliey were kind and indulgent to us. Now they are in our power. We
have a right, at least we have the power, to dictate any terms we choose.
Have we dealt as liberally with them as tliey did with us? We have driven
them back from time to time, from reservation to reservation. We have
made treaties with them that they are to hold their reserves " as long as water
runs and grass grows," but we always get rid of the treaty when we are dis-
sati-ified with it or when we covet the territory and determine to have it.
The Bill now before us, as I understand, proposes to permit them to take
in severalty lands in the proportion mentioned in the Bill within the reserva-
tions assigned to them. I favor that Bill. I believe they should have the
same right that the white man has to take homestead on their reservation,
and we should then give them a fee-simple title to it as we give to the white
citizen or settler. What inducement have they now to labor to acquire prop-
erty, to bnild houses, to clear lands, and to make homes comfortable for llieir
future dwelling, when they know that they may be driven from it at any
time when we choose to say they must leave? But when we have allotted
the lands to them and each has his land in severalty, then he is entitled to tl e
protection ot the law; he can go forward and improve his homestead. If he
knows it is his, he has a stimulant to industry, and there is something to in-
duce him to make a good citizen and to bind him to good conduct.
Tlie man who is a robber and desires to possess himself of the property of
the Indian goes upon the reserve, steals his ponies or his cattle, and brings
them away. Is it unnatural that the Indian should pursue? Is it unnatural
that he should attempt to protect his rights of property? He would be less
than a human being if he did not seek to protect ihem. The Indian fol-
lows the robber and the result generally is a collision ; somebody is killed ;
and then war. Allot his lands to him in severalty; give him the right to
build houses, to clear plantations, to raise stock upon it, with the guaranty
of the Goverument that he shall not be driven from it, and we shall in a veiy
APPENDIX. 617
short time see the progress in the far West that we have seen in the Indian
Territory.
We will soon find tlie Indians npon their homesteads advancing in civili-
zation; and under the benign influence of the Christian denominations, we
shall see Sunday schools and churches planted among tliem; and instead of
roving bands without fixed habitations, goaded to desperation by injustice
and wrong, spreading death and destruction in their pathway, we shall find
them in the comfortable homes of civilized man, not only a Christian people,
but many of them cultivated and honorable citizens.
But tlie question is, shall the Indian be a citizen? I have said it seems to
me he is a citizen already under the fourteenth constitutional amendment as
soon as he severs his tribal relation and takes the homestead that the law
now allows him to take. The fourteenth amendment is very broad in its
provisions. It reads thus :
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the
jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein
they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the
privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State
deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,
nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the
laws."
Is the Indian a person? He is the original sovereign of this continent,
who had the title to it by a possession that may have run back a hundred
generations; who met the white man when he came here kindly and frater-
nally, who during the wars that we have had with him has shown gallantry
of the highest onJer and oftentimes military genius unsurpassed — is he not a
person?
Was King Philip, who swayed the sceptre over six powerful tribes, and
who when he felt that his rights had been outraged, by his great genius and
powers of organization and persuasion, formed a league of all the tribes of
the Atlantic slope, in a cause which they considered sacred, not a person?
Was Logan, the great chief who never turned away from his cabin a white
man who asked his protection, and who never took an undue advantage of
an enemy, not a person? Was Tecumseh, whose military genius was not
surpassed by any American oflicer he met, and of whom the poet has said :
" And long will the Indian warrior sing
The deeds of Tecumseh, the royal,"
not a person? Are the educated leaders of the five civilized tribes, some of
whom possess intelligence of the highest order, not persons? Was Sequoyah,
the author of the Cherokee alphabet and dictionary, who reduced their lan-
guage to a system as complete as any other written language, not a person ?
The idea is absurd. If they are not persons what are they ? You hold that
the meanest and most ignorant negro wlio comes from the deepest jungle of
the darkest part of Africa and plants himself here is a person, and you pre-
scribe naturalization laws by which he has a right to become a citizen.
" Every human being," said Governor Horatio Seymour, " born upon our
continent, or who comes here from any quarter of the world, whether savage
or civilized, can go to our courts for protection, except those who belong to
the tribes who once owned this country. The cannibal from the islands of
the Pacific, the worst criminal from Europe, Asia, or Africa, can appeal to the
law and courts for their rights of person and property ; all save our native
Indians, who, above all, sliould be protected from wrong."
The Indian on the western plains who shows genius, and gallantry, and
manhood, is denied even an existence as a person.
618 APPENDIX.
Note the language of the Constitution :
"AH persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the
jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States."
VV^e claim that the jurisdiction of tlii.s country extend-? to the Pacific ocean.
Was the Indian born within that limit? No one questions it. He does not
ask you for natiu-alization. He cares nothing about the uniform rules you
may make on that subject. He claims his right as a birthright. He was
born in the United States, and he is a person.
But is he subject to the jurisdiction of the United States? The amend-
ment requires that he be born in the United States and subject to its juris-
diction. That question has been expressly decided by tho supreme court of
the United States in the tobacco case brought up from the Cherokee nation
by Mr. Boudinot. The Cherokees claimed under their tribal relations and
under an express section of a treaty between them and the United States that
they had a right to sell or dispose of any of their property as they might
think propel', without paying any tax to the government of the United States;
and Mr. Boudinot and his partner established the tobacco factory in the Cher-
okee nation. The officers of the United States seized it for non-payment of
internal revenue, and the question came before the supreme court of the
United States for final adjudication whether the Indian Territory was sub-
ject to the jurisdiction of the United States, and whether it had a right to
collect the revenue. The Supreme Court held that the jurisdiction of the
United States did extend into the Indian Territory, and that Congress had
the power to annul the treaty and collect the revenue. Here tlien is tlie
express decision by the higliest judicial tribunal in the Government, that the
Indians on their own reservation ai'e subject to the jurisdiction of the
United States. They were born in the United States, they are subject to
the jurisdiction of the United States, and if they be persons there is no escape
from the conclusion that they are citizens of the United States whether the
Government may choose for the time to extend its criminal laws over them
or their reservations, or not. And being citizens of the United States, they
are entitled to the protection of the laws of the United States.
A.trai n :
'• Nor shall any State deprive anj person of life, liberty, or property, -without
due process of law; nor deny to a,uy person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws."
"Why is the Indian not a person? Then, if he is a person, you have no
right to deny to him the equal protection of the laws. It is absurd to deny
that the Indian is a person. But it may be said that the next section of the
fourteenth constitutional amendment disposes of this question. Let us see:
" Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according
to their respective numbers, counting tiie whole number of persons in each
State, excluding Indians not taxed."
Yes, in making up the representative popidation of the State you exclude
the Indians not taxed; but you do more than that by this section. I read
further.
"But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for
President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Con-
gress, the executive and judicial officers of a State, or the members of the
Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State,
being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any
•way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis
of representation tlierein shall be reduced in the proportion which the num-
ber of such male citizens sliall hear to the whole number of male citizens
twenty-one years of age in such State."
APPENDIX. , 619
If the Indian is not a citizen because we exclude him in the count for rep-
resentation on the ground that he is not taxed, then you must also exclude
from tlie count the white citizens of any State who may be denied the right
of voting. To illustrate: Suppose the population of a State be 1,000, OUO,
and 100,000 of that number are Indians not taxed. When you go to make
up the representative population of that State you would count it 900,000.
Wh}' ? Because you exclude the Indi^tus not taxed. Then suppose a State
excludes from the ballot-box, for any cau-^e, 10,000 of her male citizens over
twenty-one, and the whole number of male citizens over twenty-one is 100,-
OJO ; then you deduct one-tentli. or 100,000 of the whole representative popu-
lation of tliat State, because 10,000 of the voters have been excluded. I ap-
prehend that the 100,000 white people are i?till citizens, although you are not
allowed in making up the representative population to count more than 900,-
000. Why? Because you have disfranchised enough of your citizens to ex-
clude 100.000 from the count. So in the other case with the Indians. You
exclude 100,000 of them not taxed in making up the count; but where, in
what other part of the constitutional amendment, is there an exclu-ion of the
Indian from the rights of citizenship? The Constitution does not exclude
the Indian from the representative count, because he is an Indian or because
he is not a citizen, but because he is an Indian not taxed. It is argued I sup-
pose, that because he is excluded while not ta.xed from the representative
count, therefore he is not a citizen. Then the 10,000 white people excluded
in the other case are not citizens by the same parity of reasoning. Such
reasoning is not sound.
Then I hold that the Indian is a citizen of the United States when born
upon the soil of the United States, and especially so when he severs his tribal
relation and takes his allotment of land and settles down under the laws of
the United States and pays taxes. It is true you exempt his land fr^m taxes
by tills bill for a certain length of time. Daring that period you would have
to exclude him from the representative count, but the moment you tax him,
then how does it stand ? He is a person ; he was born in the United States,
and is subject to its jurisdiction, and he pays taxes as a citizen. Why is he
not a citizen, and why is he not tlien counted in the representative apportion-
ment? I should like for some senator to give a reason why. But we cannot
trulv say that the Indians are not now taxed. We have established trading
stations among them, and all Administrations have appointed political favor-
ites to conduct this business. We do not permit any one, under heavy pen-
alties, to go into their territory and trade with them as the competitor of the
political trader appointed by the Government. They are compelled, there-
fore, to sell their produce to those favorites who are put there by our Gov-
ernment to make money off of them, and they are compelled to buy the
goods they use from the same persons. The larger part of the money raised
to support this Government is raised by a tariff upon imports. Almost every
Indian tribe purchases from these favored traders certain amounts of im-
ported goods, and every time he purchases a yard of cloth numufactured in a
foreign country, or pound of sugar or any other article made abroad, he pays
a tax to this Government. Then why is he not a citizen, entitled to the pro-
tection of the laws made by this Government? Why is not his life sacred,
and why should not the assassin who takes it wantonly suffer the extreme
penalty? Why is not his projierty entitled to the protection of the law, and
wiiy is not this protection extended to iiim on his application ? And if he is
illegally imprisoned, why is he not entitled to the benefits of the writ of ha-
heas corpus, which have recently been extended to him by an able Federal
judge in one of the Western States?
Let it be borne in mind, furthermore, that this fourteenth amendment de-
620 APPENDIX.
clares that they "are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein
they re-side." I know in some minds there is a difficulty about State rij^hts
just liere, about Congress declaring anybody a citizen. I think we are sim-
ply making a declaration here in a statute of a right that is already secured
by the Constitution, that he is a citizen whenever he has complied with these
terms.
Under the amendment we may declare him a citizen, but may not be able
to count him in the representative population until he begins to pay taxes
upon his land. But when he does he is then a person born in the United
States, and a tax-payer ; and has all the rights of a citizen under the Consti-
tution.
As I do not care to stickle about the shadow of a question of State rights
here, and as I hold he is a citizen whenever he has adopted the rules and con-
formed to the plan laid down in this statute any way, I am willing to say in
the statute in express terms that he is a citizen with all tlie protection and
duties of any other citizen. Why give it to every person of every race and
every color on the face of the earth who will come here and comply with our
laws and not give it to the original inhabitants of our own country? lie is
"to the manor born," and you have no right to drive him into the Pacific
Ocean or to slaughter him with his women and children because he will not
submit to the imperious dictates of any officer of the Government. When
you make a treaty with him' and assign to him certain limits and say, " This
is your land, Mr. Indian," he has a right to stay there and be protected, and
when he conforms to the laws conformed to by other citizens and is made a
tax-payer he has a right to claim citizenship, in the broadest sense, and
you have no right to deny it to liim.
Our mode of dealing with the Indian is in very striking contrast with that
adopted by the British Government. Why are they not always engaged in
war with the Indian in Canada? AVhy is it that they live in peace and har-
mony there? It is because the British Government has dealt justly and
fairly with the Indians. It has not driven them from post to pillar, but lias
assigned them reservations, where they have made their homes and built their
houses and cleared their fields and raised their stock and erected their school-
houses and churches. They have the rights of British subjects, and those
rights are protected. They are treated humanely and kindly, and hence they
are peaceable and loyal to that Government. Let it be borne in mind that
the Biitisli Government has not driven them to her remotest boundary to be
located. They have permitted them to take reservations on the spots where
they were born, where they have always lived, and where their fathers are
buried. I recollect, a few j^ears ago, on a visit to Quebec, that I admired the
valley of the Saint Charles as one of the loveliest I ever saw, and one that
the white man might well covet. But in going ten miles from the city, I
found in tliat beautiful valley on the river Lorette, which took its name from
the tribe, the remnant of the tribe of tlie Lorettes living on the territory of
their bii'th, and protected as Britisli subjects, and they were as loyal as any
other subjects that the British Government had in Canada.
I visited the residence of the chief in the midst of that magnificent valley,
where I was received kindly, and among other curiosities I was shown what
were called the "crown jewels," prominent among them a bronze medal pre-
sented to the chief by Prince Albert, and a silver medal presented by the
Prince of Wales. These were regarded as treasures of the nation and the
tribe blessed the names of the donors. Their hearts swell with pride when
they say, " I am a British subject," How marked is the contrast between
that state of things and what we witness in our own country! There the
Indian has been justly and kindly treated and is a willing subject to the Gov-
APPENDIX. C2l
ernment and a warm friend to the white man. Here he has been too often
unjustly and harshly treated, and he is the natural enemy of liis oppressors.
Tliere they are civilized, and in larife numbers converted to Cliristiaiiity.
Here on the plains the wild Indian is often butchered because he has de-
fended his rights against some robber wlio plundered him of his prop-
erty.
It may be paid we have the power to carry out this line of policy. That
is true. But have we the right to do it? We are stror.g ; we are powerful.
But tliere is a Being stronger and much more powerful than we are. And we
should not forget that nations as well as individuals have to answer for
wrongs and outrages committed by them. In what way we may be called to
answer I do not pretend to say. Whether it will be by ])estilence or war, or
in what other manner we may be scourged for our cruelty to the aborigines
of this country, I know not. But I believe the crimes committed by us
against the Poncas, and in the massacre of the Cheyennes and other like out-
rages, will moet their reward in national punishment.. Our course is con-
demned by the civilization of the age. It is condemned by humanity, and
it is condemned by Christian men and women everywhere who understand
the facts.
I do not put the blame at the door of any particular person or official. I
do not pretend to say where it rests. I do not call in question the motives
of any one, but I do say the acts were criminal; they cannot be justified.
What were the facts? The Cheyennes had been carried to the Indian Ter-
ritory. They could not stand the climate and were dying fast with disease.
Some three hundred escaped, and in midwinter, under the most adverse cir-
cumstances, made their way back toward their own country, and had gone
several hundred miles before the military overtook them. Wiien summoned
to surrender, they refused to do so without a guaranty that they should not
be sent back to the Indian Territory, saying that they would rather fight till
they died than toi'eturn. The commanding officer gave them to understand,
and they did understand, that they should not be carried back to the Terri-
tory if they would surrender. After the surrender they were carried to
P^o: t Robinson, and an order was then sent to carry them to the Indian Ter-
ritory. They refused to go, and about one hundred and fifty of them, being
all that survived, were imprisoned, thinly clad, in midwinter, when the ther-
mometer was below zero, for five days at a time without food or fire, and
three days of the time without water, to compel them to consent to return to
the Indian Territory, where their ranks had been fast decimated by dis-
eases incident to the climate, and when they preferred death to a return.
If we were determined to carry out our dictatorial policy and compel them
to return to the reservation, why did we not hold tliem at the fort and treat
them humanely till we had provided the means to transport them, and then
send them under military escort?
But I turn from this sickening theme, and will not dwell longer upon it by
rehearsing scenes that attended the butchery of men, women, and children
who attempted, by violence, to escape from this horrible imprisonment.
If we treat the Indians as they do in Canada we may avoid wars. We
need not have the army always chasing them if we will do justice to them
and not be always robbing them. In my opinion it is much better to expend
a few millions in locating them and giving them agricultural implements, and
in educating and civilizing them and their children, than it is to expend a
imndred millions in pursuing them over the plains and slaughtering them like
wolves.
But it is said by those disposed to give no quarters to the Indians that they
are savage and cruel in their mode of warfare, often slaughtering indiscrim-
622 APPENDIX.
inately, men, women, and children. This is unfortunately true; but what
better could we expect from people who have none of the advantages of the
proper traininji^ incident to civilization, and who feel that they are greatly
oppressed? The point I make, however, is that, those wars in which they
practice cruelty have usually been provoked by bad white men or by the
agents of i;overnii,ents at war with tlie United' States, The Indian is not
naturally dispo>ed to go to war with tiie white man. Our early history shows
that very clearly. It was only when their rights had been trampled upon by
the white man that they took up arms. The rattlesnake is the most peace-
able reptile on the plains. When you come in contact with him, if you will
not trample upon him or practice aj/gi'ession that causes him to believe that
you intend to do it, he will crawl away and leave you; but when you place
your foot upon liim he declares war, and fights with savage de-peration. So
with these cinldren of the forest, once so strong and now so weak and so near
extinction.
But it may be said that tliey are savatres, and cannot be civilized and made
good citizens. Our experience has taught us very diiTerently. On that point
1 want to call attention to two or tliree passages taken from the reports of
the In(iian agents for the civilized tribes. The agent says, speaking of these
civilized tribes :
" Tiiese people have recovered slowly from the effects of tlie war, but they
are now in a position, if not disturbed, to become a strong and wealthy peo-
ple. Their only fear is that the United States will forget her obligations,
and in some way deprive them of their lands. They do not seem to care for
the loss in money value so much as they fear the trouble and the utter anni-
hilation of a great portion of their people, if the wliites are permitted to
homestead in all poiti(jns of their country, as is contemplated by so many of
the measures before Congress."
Again he savs:
"Crime is no more frequent than in the adjoining States, and convictions
by local authority are about as sure. The band of desperadoes, whites and
Indians, who made their headquarters in the western part of this agency, and
beyond, and who were the terror of the whole country last year, have all been
killed or [ilaced in the penitentiary. The feeling 'among these nations is
stronger than ever for the enforcement of the law.
'• Tlie Methodist, Presbyterian, and Baptist denominations have missiona-
ries here, and are duing good work. Some of the missionaries have been
here for many years, and their influence for good is great. Their means for
support is small, and they work hard, and only those remain in the field who
possess a true missionary spirit. The church buildings are not expensive or
ornamental, but are built for use. The Sabbath is well respected and ob-
served. xMany of the Indians are ordained ministers. Some of them have
been educated in the States, ai d returned to labor among their own people.
"The schools of these nations are conducted upon the school systein'of the
States. The English language is tai.ght exclusively. Many of the boys and
girls are being sent to the States to be educated at "the expense of the nation.
Many of the wealthy send tluir children East to be educated at their owa
expense. The result is a surprise to the stranger who meets so many well-
educated people among the nations. There are also private schools with
good attendance. 1 am of tlie opinion that the solution of the Indian ques-
tion, if it is ever solved before the last one is driven from the face of the
earth, will be in the education of the Indian children."
It appear.s, therefore, from the reports from the five civilized tribes that
they have made great i)rogress in education and they are probably doing as
much or more with the funds at their disposal now for the education of their
APPENDIX. 623
children than we are doing. Among them are intelh'fient divines, intelli-
gent lawyers, intelligent judjres ; in a word they are a civilized people, with
dwellings and farms and orchards and gardens and stock, and are fast rival-
ling us in the arts of civilization. Why may not other tribes reach the same
elevation with the same advantages ? Tliere is no reason why it may not
be so. Indeed it is almost a certainty that it will be so.
In the same report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs I find state-
ments in reference to the wild tribes that have been located there. Even the
Modocs, who were carried down under circumstances so unfavorable, are
making, as the a^jent states, very decided progress toward becoming civilized.
It may be said, then, why not carry out the policy that has been carried out
heretofore, of taking them from their homes West, and, after killing off a
large proportion, carry the little remnant there, and get them all together.
I say it is cruelty ; it is outrage. Put tliem upon reservations, upon their native
heath, let them take their land in severalty on their reservations, encourage
them to go to work, and when they have gone to work protect tliem in their
labor and in the property they acquire by their labor. In a word, extend
the protection of the law over them, and subject them to its penalties when
they violate it. Treat them as persons, as human beings, not as wild
animals.
Mr. Teller. The senator says the Indians should have their lands in sev-
eralty. I should like to inquire of the honorable senator if the progress in
civilization made by the tive civilized tribes has not been with land in
connnon ?
Mr. Brown. Yes ; I understand they hold the fee-simple in common.
Mr. Teller. Why not pursue the same course then with the other tribes ?
Mr. Brown. I have no doubt in a very short time they will abandon the
practice of holding the fee-simple in common. With their order of intelli-
gence and enlightenment they will soon have the same idea of individual
rights of property and of individual protection that we have. It is true, as
I understand our treaties, (and I am for strict good faith in the observance
of treaties), we have no right to compel them to take their lands in severalty ;
but I have no doubt in a few years they will divide them in severalty among
themselves. As we started out wrong, I think in the future in dealing with
the different tribes we should start right, and give the land to them in sev-
eralty at the commencement.
Mr. President, I want this matter put where there can be no doubt about
it, so that when the Indians desire to conform to the laws they shall have
the right to do it under the protection of the law.
In the treaty made in 185-1 with the Omahas there was provision made
that their lands might be allotted in severalty whenever the President thinks
proper to do so. I understand that they have sent petition after petition to
the President to permit the division, and let them have their lands in sever-
alty, but that a deaf ear has always been turned to them. The time has not
yet come when the President has in his discretion concluded that it was best
to permit them to have those treaty regulations carried out. I would make
the provision imperative, that when they comjily with certain provisions laid
down by law they shall have a right to the patent. Take the Omahas, for
instance. As they have not any land in severalty, what inducement is there
for the industrious, frugal, attentive Indian to labor for his advancement
and the advancement of his family ? If he undertakes to build a house and
clear lands and raise stock he knows not what time he may be driven away
from it. He knows not whether under a new apportionment that land will
fall to him or to another, or whether it will be taken by the white man.
Our own race would neither build houses, clear lands, nor make other im-
G24 APPENDIX
provements under any such uncertainty as to tlieir right to enjoy the fruits
of their labor in future.
If tlie Omaha say.s, " The treaty provides that I may liave my land in
severalty," the reply is, " You have never cfot the exercise of tlie discretion of
the President to permit you to do it." What encouragement is there then ?
I understand there are bad Indians in every tribe and tliere are good In-
dians ; there are lazy Indians and there are industrious Indians; and the
way to encourage industry is to let each man who labors with his hands feel
that he labors on his own soil and is piotected by the laws of the country
that are thrown over him, and, like a shield, guaranty him against robbery
and wrong. Then you stimulate his industry; he has something to work
for ; but where lie is driven from post to pillar at the will of the government,
or an official of the government or of the army, what inducement do you
hold out to him to act industriously or to make him a comfortable home or
to make his family comfortable and happy V None whatever. AVe hold out
the reverse. The ancestors of tlie present Indians once held the whole con-
tinent in fee-simple. We have taken it from them. Is it asking too much
of us, wheu we have a vast unoccupied territory that the white man is not
yet able to cultivate, that the descendants of the original proprietors of the
whole should have the privilege of locating homesteads on this vast domain
where they can labor for a livelihood and be protected in tiie fruits of their
labor?
I understand it is the wish of t!ie chiefs of many of the tribes to continue
the tribal relations. They are like all other human beings, I suppose ; they
love power, and they want to continue things as they are so that they may
have control of their people. Tiierefoie they carry them from point
to point, and frequently we see that they come here and sell out ; the coun-
try is disposed of by four or five men agreeing that th^y will move oif a
hundred or a thousand miles from the place of their nativity, ai.d all the
tribe must leave their homes because a certain amount of money has been
spent on four or five chiefs here. I say to encourage the common Indians to
take their homesteads and settle down upon tiiem and go to work and aban-
don the tribal relations and become peaceable citizens of the United States,is in
my judgment the best solution of the Indian question. As long as they roam
or are driven from one point to another we cannot expect they will settle
down and become good citizens. AVhenever you hold out the inducement
and say to the Indian, " Take your homestead here, build your house, clear
}our plantation, raise your stock, send your children to school, and he who
comes here to steal your pony shall atone for it in the penitentiary ; he who
takes your life shall go to the gallows, and you, too, shall conform to tiie
laws or suffer the penalties," you will find them or at least a large proportion
of them ready to do it. If there be those among them who will not do it, subject
them to the laws until the penal statutes properly executed have brought
them to subjection. That is the way to civilize tln'm, in my opinion. Do
justice to them. I do not believe there is any other plan that will ever solve
tills Indian question short of their extermination from the continent.
I knew a few of them in my own State who staid when the Cherokee tribe
left there, mostly half-l^r^-eds, some quadroons. They have taken reserva-
tions there, and are as good citizens as any we have in the State. They are
intelligent, they are law-abiding, they are orderly; part of them are good
Christian men and. women, and they are exemplary citizens. AVhy may it
not be so elsewhere if we give them the same opportunities ?
I trust, Mr. President, that we shall pass this bill in a shape that will give
every Indian a home on his reservation, and guaranty it to him and his
children for all time to come, and that the power of alienation will be re-
APPENDIX. 625
stricted until he has learned the rights and the duties of an American citi-
zen. After that let him and his posterity take care of it or alienate it as mny
any one else. Fix a reasonable time ; exempt their homestead from taxation.
After that time there is no further ex'-lusiou in the fourteenth constitutional
jimendnient in the way of counting them in the representative population of
the States where they may reside, and no reason that I can see why they
may uot be liiU-fli^dged citizens and voters.
Speech of Hon. Joseph E. Urotvn, Dflivered in the Senate of the
United States, Febkuaky 17, 1881, on the Funding Bill.
Mr. Brown said :
Mr. President: So much has been said upon this question that the
Senate i^ doubtless fatigued with the discussion and they could not patiently
hear further speeches of any great length. It is not my purpose, therefore,
to enter into a general discussion of the questions involved in tlie issue now
before us. I am unwilling, however, to cast my vote without stating a few
of the reasons which control my judgment in the premises.
As has already been said by otiier senators, we have paid off a large part
of the public debt incurred by the war within the last ten years; and
while the taxes of our people have been heavy they have not been sucli as
to prevent us from moving forward to a high tide of piosperity. The
countiy as a whole has probably at no time been more prosperous than it
now is". Within the last twenty years the area of production, or the increase
in the acreage of cultivation, has been enormous. Our population has in-
creased at a rapid rate, and it has already reached over fifty millions. We
have a vast territory of unsurpa^^sed fertility. The American people are
a hardy, laborious people, full of energy and enterprise, ambitious for suc-
cess, and determined to accumulate wealth. During the last few yeais our
principal crops have been about doubled in quantity, and our facilities for tratis-
portation have been so largely increased that all our productions of every
character, to say nothing of our manufactured articles, find a ready market
either at home or in foreign ports. Not many years ago corn was a very
common fuel in parts of the West during the winter season where wood
was scarce, and wheat and pork and other productions of the country found
scarcely any market, leaving the people on the fertile plains of the West,
without market, with but little to stimulate their energy or enterprise,
content to make enough produce to live upon, and to remain at home and
enjoy it. Now we have some ninety thousand miles of railroad in operation,
penetrating every section of the country that has been settled by our people,
and pressing forward into the uncultivated wilderness, leading and induc-
ing population to follow. This state of things, together with the wars and
oppressions of some of the European governments, has brought to our
shores a largely increased number of immigrants, each of whom finds a
home in a rich country, where by labor he can soon make himself and his
family comfortable.
A few years ago our exchanges were conducted almost entirely upon the cot-
ton and tobacco crops of the South. Now the grain crop and the meat crop
of the West enter very largely into the account. Why? Because tiie mar-
kets of the world are now open to these productions, which can be sent over
long lines of railroad at low rates to the coast and then rapidly transported
across the ocean upon steamships. The result has been that the last few
years have shown an enormous balance of trade in our favor, which has
poured a stream of gold into the United States from other countries to pay
40
G26 APPENDIX.
the balance due to us resulting from the usual interchange of commodities.
This stream of gold ;nid the iiirge amounts that are made at home and taken
from our mines is .-eeking investment. Large sums have fallen into the hands
of caj)itali.sts of great wealth, nianj' of whom do not desire to risk their fortunes
upon sjieculation or upon the chances of an active business, and they naturally
seek, even at a low rate of interest, first-class investments that are perfectly
safe and free from taxation.
Not only is this true of tiie capitalists of large means, who invest heavily
in the securities of the United States, but it is also true of a vast number
of our best citizens and laboring people, who are making something to invest
and who desire to place it where it will be secure. And a bond on the
United States, perfectly secure, if it is not taxable, which pays 3 per cent,
intere-t, is a better investment for even a small caj)italist than he finds in
most of the channels into which he can put his capital. I think I may
venture to say that a large proportion of the farmers of the United States,
after tliey have paid all the expenses attending the production of their crops,
and all the taxes assessed by the Government of the United States, the gov-
ernments of the States, and of the counties where they reside, do not make
clear more than 3 i^er cent, upon the capital invested. The same is true
of a large proportion of the holders of real estate in our villages, towns, and
cities. Ileal estate, when in the hands of men who manage well, where it
is Wfll located and properly improved, pays a better per cent.
But in every city, town, or village in the Union it would be found that
much of the real estate is unimproved, and the owners are paying tax upon
it without income. And of the improved real estate there is a large propor-
tion that is not in tlie best location or under the best management, that
does not pay 3 per cent, after all expenses of repairs, insurance, and State,
county, and municipal taxation have been paid. Nor do I believe that the
whole capital invested in railroads or in mining in this country has paid 3 per
cent, net to the owners. Some railroads and some mines have paid largely,
but I speak of the averajre, of the whole sum invested. And our people in
this condition are beginning to calculate and properly to estimate their true
situation. Hence it is that whenever the bonds of the United States have
been offered, as on a late occasion, to the populace, they have taken them
readily at the ruling prices even as low as 4 per cent, when our bonds
brought no such premium as they now bring. And I have no hesitancy in
saying that it this loan is offered to the people of the United States, and
is placed within their reach in tliedifferent cities and larger towns all over the
Union for as much as thirty days after having been advertised, that the coun-
try will be as^tonished at the amount that will be taken by citizens of small
means, who desire to lay by something that they can calculate upon as
positively certain, and that is absolutely free from the demands of the tax
g?»therer.
Senators doubt whether we can place bonds redeemable after five years
at the option of the Government, but which the Government is not under
obligation to redeem until the end of twenty years, usually called five-
twenties, upon the market successfully at 3 per cent. I do not entertain
at;y doubt on this subject. Fifteen j^ears ago if the United States wanted
to borrow money they had to pay ti per cent. Then came a loan of 5 per
cent., that was readily taken ; and a loan at 4^, and then a 4 per cent,
bond, and now the 4 per cent, bonds are selling in the market at 113 to 114.
This shows the increased confidence of our people in our public securities,
and their increased ability to purchase them. And the immense increase in
the pro(iuctions and the manufactures of the country, and the vast increase
in the balance of trade in our favor, have placed in the hands of our people
APPENDIX. 627
the means to gratify their disposition to invest in the bonds of their Govern-
ment at a rate which, while it seems low, pays them a better income with
absohite certainty than they can find elsewhere.
Reference has been made to the English consols, which at 3 per cent,
have been most of the time a little under par. Yet it is admitted that with-
in the last few years they have reached par. It is said, however, that this
is oil account of the long term they have to run, or, raiher, on account of ttie
fact that they run perpetually; and the owner is simply entitled to his 3 per
cent, interest on the investment. That, with a certain class of wealthy
men who desire to invest, is in their favor, and causes them to bear a better
price. But another large class who would rather see the end of tlie loan oc-
casionally, and know a particular day in the future, when they can demand,
not what may be the market price of the consol, but the par value of it,
would prefer that it should have some fixed period to run.
But there is another reason why United States bonds are naturally worth
more in the market than British consols. The incomes from consols are
taxable ; our bonds are absolutely free from taxation. Again, this Govern-
ment has a territory immensely hirger ai;d more productive than the
British Government possesses. 1 do not speak now of the British colonies,
many of which, when you deduct the expense of their wars, are not very re-
nmnerative to their mother country ; but I speak of the domain that proper-
ly belongs to the British Government, and constitutes its home territory.
There is not, therefore, room with them for the great expansion that we
have in tliis country. There is nothing like so large a population in the
British Isles as we have here. And while, on account of the fact that the
country is mucli older, there has been a larger accumulation of wealth in
proportion to numbers, there is no reasonable prospect that the wealth of
that country will remain, as now, in excess of the wealth of this country in
proportion to numbers.
But tliere is still anotlier significant fact. The British Government, with
all its strength and its naval power, is all the time engaged in war with
somebody, whicli compels it to maintain large armies and navies. Those
wars are expensive, and it cannot be denied that in the British Islands there
is a growiuii discontent with the government.
At tills very time the Irish question is one of great difficttlty, and no one
can Siiy that tlie inhabitants of the British IslantJs may not be cutting each
other's throats within the next six months. The tenants and peasantry
everywhere in the islands are becoming restless at the present land laws and
the present high rents they have to pay. This r< stlessnessis also permeating
the laboring masses in the iron and coal mines and the manufacturing districts ;
and stable and powerful as the British Governtnent has been for a long while
its prospects for future peace, prosperity, and stability are not, probably, as
great as tiioseof the United States. Its old land system and its aristocracy
are in danger. We have passed through our internal struggle. It is not at all
probable that we shall have another such struggle within a century or probably
centuries to come. All patriots unite in the hope that we may never have
another. Our country, then, with a well established government, and with
resources unequalled by any other country, offers to the world assurances of
peace, i)roaperity, stability, and ability to pay, that neither the British Gov-
ernment nor any other guvernment offers.
We feel that we have an exemption from future foreign wars possessed by
few other governments. Prior to the late war between the States, this Gov-
ernment was considered by the leading governments of Europe as a second
class power in a military point of view. But our own struggle developed on
each side immense strength, gallantry, and skill. The Southern Confederacy,
628 APPENDIX.
notwithstanding the great disadvantages under which it labored, brought
into the field its half a million of gallant men. The Northern States, after a
long struijgle of four years, brought into the field an aruiy of sufficient power
to crush tlie Confederate armies and dictate terms of peace. We have now
laid down our past differences. The two armies and the two sections are
now united, and in case of a foreign war the troops who fought under oppos-
ing banners in the late struggle would rally together, as a united force,
grand and invincible, under the old flag of the Union. Our Government,
with all its sections and all the States again cordially united, can put 5,000,-
000 men into the field if the exigencies should require it. And while we lack
a navy, and on that account nnght be exposed to temporary inconvenience
in case of a foreign war with a naval power, still the final result could not be
doubtful. It is not the interest of any foreign power to attack us with our
present united strength, nor is it our disposition unjustly to attack any other
power. Therefore we have a freedom from war and the expenses of large
armies and navies for a long periled to come, which it is not likely Great
Britain or any other of the great powers will enjoy. We naturally have a
right therefore to expect, these points being all understood, that capitalists
and persons generally who seek investment would pay a little higher price
for United States bonds than they would for the securities of any other
government.
In view of our vast territory, our great population, our immense resources,
our unbounded facilities for transportation, our rapidly increasing crops, our
growing manufactures, our limitless mineral wealth, the growth of our
educational, moral and religious institutions, our freedom from prospective
wars, the heavy balance of trade in our favor, and for other reasons that I
might assign, but which I will not weary the Senate by giving at present, I
shall vote tor a 3 per cent, bond, redeemable at any time after five years and
payable at the end of twenty. And I do not entertain the slightest doubt
that the bonds can be negotiated in the market and disposed of at par with-
out any difiiculty.
One word about another point connected with the bill before I take my
seat. On pages three and four I find the following language : "And the
expense of preparing, issuing, advertising, and disposing of the bonds and
Treasury notes authorized to be issued shall not exceed one-half of 1
per cent."
What is the meaning of this, and what is the amount here given? It
means that this one-half of 1 per cent, upon the whole amount is to be given
or used for the preparation and negotiation of the bonds.
In other words it ipeans that we are to pay for the printing, executing,
advertising and disposing of the bonds one-half of 1 per cent. The House of
Representatives fixed it at one-fourth of 1 per cent. ; but the Finance Com-
mittee of the Senate has thought proper to change it to one-half of 1 per cent.,
and we were told by the honorable chairman of the committee, on day before
yesterday, in substance, that he would not desire to take the responsibility of
possibly defeating the loan by refusing to pay as much as one-halt of 1 per cent,
for negotiating it ; and he called upon senators to know whether they would de-
sire to incur such responsibility. Forone, I have no hesitation in responding
that I will with pleasure take the responsibility of voting to pay a smaller sura
for that service. What is the sum we propose to pay ? The whole issue of bonds
and Treasury notes which are interest-bearing, which it is proposed to put
upon the market, amounts to $700,000,000. One-half of 1 per cent, for pre-
paring and negotiating the bonds is to be paid on this whole amount.
What is it ? The snug little sum of §3, 500,000. Now, 1 will be pardoned
for expressing the belief that it will not cost half a million to pay for engray-
APPENDIX. 62D
ing, printing, issuing, and advertising these securities. Then what do we
pay the other three millions for? For disposing of the bonds ?
In other words, we give that amount as a bonus; or, in steamship phrase,
which has been so often used here within tlie last few days, we give it as a
subsidy to a certain syndicate of banliers for the trouble of negotiating this
loan for us.
Now, if I were nol a senator, I should like very much to takethis contract,
and guaranty the negotiation of the whole loan at par. And rather than
miss the contract I might be willing to pay out of this bonus or subsidy, if
it becomes necessary, to the national Democratic executive committee or to
the national Republican executive committee, whichever may be in power and
have the right to expect it, the sum of a million of dollars to aid in conduct-
ing the campaign of 1884, if party exigencies should require it. And I
should feel then that I had made the handsome sum of about two millions
for my trouble. And if I could not succeed with the present syndicate, with
$700,000,(100 of United States securities under my control, I could readily
form one with which I would succeed. And if my syudicate, after the popu-
lace had been served, should have the good fortune to take a large propor-
tion of the bonds, I should not entertain any doubt that within the next
twelve months we would make more than another one-half of one per cent,
in premiums upon the bonds so taken.
But we are warned by senators that if we should offer a 3 per cent, bond
and the ne2:otiations should fail, and we were unable to dispose of it at par,
we should lose within the next year $12,000,000 in interest, being the differ-
ence between the rate we are now paying on the bonds and the rate of 3^
per cent. And this is held over us, probably not as a rod, but as a strong rea-
son why we should issue a 3^ per cent, bond instead of a 3 per cent. But
there is another side to this picture. Suppose we should issue a 3^ per cent,
bond, when we could readily sell a 3 per cent, bond, what would this cost us?
It would be an addition of three and a half millions per annum to. the inter-
est we would pay on the new loan. If the bond is a 5-20 we would be
obliged to pay interest on it at this rate for five years. That would amount to
$17,500,000. And if we could not at the end of the five years exercise the
option given to the (Government, and redeem the bond for another five
years, it would add $17,500,000 more to the burdens of the people. In other
words, in the event we should issue a 31 per cent, bond, when we could ne-
gotiate a 3 per cent, bond, we would pay out of the taxes raised from the
people $35,01)0,000 more interest in ten years than we would pay upon the
3 per cent. loan. And there would be no way of getting rid of 617,500,000
of this amount, and we would be obliged to pay it. Therefore the chances
for loss to the Treasury are greater if we issue a 3^ per cent, bond than if we
issue a 3 per cent. bond. In the one case we might possibly lose $12,000,000
of interest ; in the other case we would lose $17,500,000 of intere.-<t; and if
the bonds should run ten years we would lose $35,000,000 in interest. Tak-
ing into the account the chances in favor of the negotiation of a 3 per cent,
loan, the prospects for loss are much greater in the event we determine to
issue a 3^ per cent. bond.
But it is intimated that the credit of the Government would suffer in that
case. Why so ? It would simply show that we had not been able to do
that which other nations have not been able to do — float at par a 3 per cent.
bond. But how would this injure our credit? Would it make our four per
cents, now in the market less valuable ? The only effect would be that we
must continue to pay the present rate of interest on the bonds until another
loan is offered to the country at a rate that could be negotiated.
But I am so thoroughly satisfied that there will be no difliculty about the
630 APPENDIX.
negotiation of a 3 per cent, loan that T shall, as already stated, not hesitate
to cast my vote in favor of 3 per cent. We have no right to tax the labor of
this country or the property of this country to pay the capitalists or anybody
else aliigher rate of interest than the lowest rate at which the bonds of the
Government can be readily negotiated.
And if we retain section 5 of the bill as it came from the House of Repre-
sentatives, and compel the national banks in future to deposit the 3 percent,
bonds, and no others, as security for their issues, we will make assurance
doubly sure.
Speech of Hox. Joseph E. Browx, of Georgia, Delivered in the Sen-
ate OF THE United States, ]\Iarch 28, 1881, in Reply to Senator
Mahone, of Virginia, on That Peculiar Coincidence.
The Senate having under consideration the resolution submitted by the Senator from
Massachusetts [Mr. Dawes] for the election of officers of the Senate.
Mr. Brown said:
Mr. President: I had hoped I should see the speech of the senator from
Viigiuia [Mr. Mahone] wliich was delivered yesterday, in the Record this
morning. I predicated that hope on the fact that the senator seemed to read
his speech, not from written manuscript as is often done, but from printed
slips. The natural supposition was, therefore, that it had been revised and
that there was no good reason why it should not go into the Record this
morning after such careful pre|iaratioii. I was, however, disappointed in
that reasonable expectation, and I am left to make some remarks in reply
to-day witliout having that rather remarkable production before nie.
One of the points tlie senator dwelt upon with most satisfaction was what
he considered a dissection of my own record. ' Possibly it is not very inter-
esting to the country, although the senator thought proper to bring it before
the country and grossly to misrepresent it. lie took the position that I had
been inconsistent. I must admit that most men who have bfen long in pub-
lic life have sometimes been placed in positions that appear to be inconsistent
with each other, and I must admit that the position that I now occupy on
certain questions is not the position I occupied at the commencement of the
war, now known as the war of the rebellion. I went into that contest to
maintain slavery and State sovereignty. These were the two cardinal points
upon which we planted ourselves. I sincerely believed we were riglit in both.
The war, however, has settled both questions. Slavery is abolished and I am
now content that it is abolished. Then I was a pro-slavery man. To that
extent, therefore, I may be said to be inconsistent, or to have changed posi-
tion, growing out of the results of the war. I honestly and earnestly advo-
cated then and believed in State sovereignty. The results of the war and
the amendments to the Constitution have so changed our situation that I
cannot and do not contend to-day that the States are sovereign in the sense
in whicli I then claimed that they were sovereign. Therefore, on these ques-
tions 1 may be properly said to be, as most Southern men are, inconsistent.
I do not contend now for what I claimed then.
The senator said, as he is a readjuster, that I had a very happy faculty of
readjusting myself to fit the circumstances. 1 do not know with how much
justice I miglit claim that faculty ; but there is one point of readjustment I
can never attain. I would be wholly unable to readjust myself so as to oc-
cupy the position that the senator from Virginia occupies to-day before this
Senate and this country. I may readjust myself to many circumstances, but
I could not afford to be a party to that kind of readjustment. If he enjoys
APPENDIX. 631
either the distinction or the notoriety he has lately attained, I confess I rather
pity than envy him.
The senator would have you believe that T was a very ardent rehel. I plead
guilty to that charge in the fullest sense of tlie term. When I went into that
contest I went in deliberately, with my mind made up that I was right. I
was a secessionist, and when I saw that my State had determined to st^cede
I did not choose to have any other power occupy the forts or arsenals of that
State, as the Govt-rnment of the United States had occupied Fort Sumter at
Charleston. Hence, I took the responsibility to seize those forts and hold
them ; and situated as I then was, 1 con>idered it my duty.
He was a little wrong on one point, however, when he stated, if I under-
stood him correctly, that 1 seized the arsenal at Augusta before the State
seceded. That was a day or two afterward; but I will give him the full
benefit. If it had been necessary to have done it to protect the arms that
were there and preserve them for our cause, I would have seized them m nd-
vance; I liave no hesitation about that. I went into the contest like the
Bostouians did in the Revolution. They threw the tea overboard and fought
the battle of Lexington before hostilities had been declared; they saw the
contest had to come ; they prepared for it. They took time by the forelock
and did all they could to strengthen their position.
That is what I did at the commencement of the war we now term the re-
bellion. I have no regrets about it. Situated as I was then, with the sur-
roundings at that time, and engaged in the cause I was at the time, I did
what I should do again under like circumstances. In other words, to speak
more correctly, I considered that the facts and circumstances by which I was
surrounded not only justified my action then, but made it my duty to do what
I did.
But the honorable senator says that 1 had ambition for the presidency of
the Confederate States. There, as in some other cases, his statement is very
wide of the facts. There happen to be living witnesses to day who know
that I positively refused to permit my name to be used for any Confederate
position whatever. I had attained — he says I am ambitious — a point of am-
bition that he did not attain in Virginia, and failing to attain it he conceived
the idea of abandoning the Democracy. I was governor of my State at the
time; I sought no higher position ; my ambition was gi^^ified. The people
of my State honort-d me with that position not only once, but for four suc-
cessive terms by four different elections. That was honor enough to satisfy
the ambition of a reasonable man. It fully satisfied mine at the time. There-
fore the senator is much mistaken when he says I was ambitious for any Con-
federate office. I had no disappointed ambition on that question, as he seems
to iiave in the matter of the governorship of his own State.
The senator made the further charge that I was the first to confiscate
private property at Savannah. This charge is without foundation. A citi-
zen of Georgia had purchased two hundred stands of muskets in New York
after Georgia had seceded, but before there wns any war or any blockade.
The chief of police of the city of New York, who was understood to act under
the authority of the Governor of that State, seized the guns and would not
permit them to be sent to Georgia. I presented that fact to the Governor of
New York and demanded their immediate release; and as they were not
promptly released, I ordered all the ships belonging to citizens of New York
in the harbor of Savannah to be seized and held until the guns were delivered,
and no longer. I notified the authorities of New York that ]\Ir. Gazaway B.
Lamar, of that city, was my agent to receive the guns. After some days'
delay I was informed by Mr. Lamar that they had agreed to release the guns.
I then released the ships ; but before they had all left the harbor I was noli-
632 APPENDIX.
fied that the authorities of New York again refused to permit the guns to be
sent forward, and I then ord^-red the ships to be detained till tliey were sent.
Not many days afterward the guns were shipped to Savannali, and I then
released the ships uf the citizens of New York. This is doubtless the confis-
cation to which the senator refers. A mere statement oftlie facts is a suffi-
cient refutation of the charge. I required the gitns, whirh were the property
of a citizen of (Jeorgia, to be sent forward, and I held the ships until they
were sent, and then discharged them. The guns were seized in violation of
right and of the comity usual between States. The ships were seized to be
held until the guns were delivered. I had as much right to hold tliem as the
authorities of New York had to hold the guns, and I did it until I had accom-
plished my object. I had no other remedy but the one to which I resorted,
and I made that effective.
But the senator says that when the cause of the Confederacy began to
wane I withdrew with my militia from the starry cross. 1 his is what he is
reported in the New York Htruld this morning to have said. I have to quote
his language from recollection and from the best sources in my power, as he
has not thought proper to give it to us in the Rt cord. There again he is
misintormed about the facts, or he wilfulh' misrepresents the facts. I never
withdrew with my militia from the Confederalie cause. True, I differed
M'ith the Confederate authorities on the conscript question. J had gone, as
I have already stated, into tlie contest to maintain slavery and State so\er-
eignty. When the Confederate Congress passed the conscript act I felt,
whether right or wrong, tliat we had not much State sovereignty left when
we gave the President of the Confederate States the power to organize regi-
ments of conscripts, and to appoint every officer down to a second lieutenant.
There was a long correspondence between me and the President of the
Confederate States on that question; but while I refused to have anything
to do with the execution of the conscript act in Georgia, I notified liini that
under the other provisions of that act I would not throw tiie slightest obstacle
in the way of its execution by him. And let me here state that there was
never a single instance during the struggle when the President of the Con-
federate States called on me for troops of a character furnished by any other
Confederate State, or such as were subject to Confederate service, that I did
not furnish or tender not only the quota called for, but a larger quota than
he called for — not a single instance.
Now, as to my withdrawing the militia. When General Sherman's army
invaded Georgia I called out a class of our people who were not subject to
conscription, and had not been called out in large numbers by the other Con-
federate States; I called the old men up to fiftj'-five years of age and the
boys down to sixteen, and I reqiared the clerks of the courts, the sheriffs, the
ordinaries, the tax collectors and receivers, and all the other officers of every
character to go with them, to unite in regiments, electing their own officers;
and I raised of that class not subject to conscription about ten thousand men
that I placed under that giand old hero, General Johnston, as soon as possible
after Sherman had invaded the State. They renuuned under his control
until he was superseded by General Hood; and then I placed theni under
General Hood's control. They stayed in the trenches around Atlanta until
the city was surrendered, and both Johnston and Hood placed on record
high commendatinn of their gallantry and the distinguished service they
rendered in the defence of that city and of the State.
When General Hood made his march to the west he did not desire to carry
this class of militia with him ; the boys and the old men could not iiave stood
his hard marc'i, and they had only been organized of a class not subject to
conscription, for the defence of their own State. When he left Georgia fur
APPENDIX. ' 633
Tennessee General Sherman turned upon his heel ap 'marched for the sea-
coast. I kept that niiliti;i force under arms and •^.noyed hiin all I could on
his passage through the State. General 4ustavus W. Smith, a distinguished
officer of the old army, was the majorgeneral in command of them, and
when I sent tiiem around by rail to favannah, when Sln^rman was on his
march tlirongh the State, General Sirlth asked me if it became necessary to
throw them into any other State wither I consented, and I told him without
hesitation to do so; and history r/Cords the fact that he carried them across
into South Carolina, and tliey fqight there the battle of Honey Hill and wou
a victory over a regular Federiyf'Ji'ce. They were then returned to Georgia,
and I surrendered those gall^t troops after Lee and Johnston had surren-
dered. /
That is the way and tht't was the time that my militia were withdrawn
from the starry cross, i was in the field with them, among the last who
stood by the cause. The battle of Griswoldville was fought by tliem against
part of Sherman's tbops as they went through Georgia, one of the bloodiest
of the war for the numbers engaged. This was the way of their withdrawal
from the cause jf the starry bars. They came at my call to defend their
State, and theyremained under arms in its defence until the armies of the
Confederacy hid been surrendered. Tn the mean time they had fought a
battle and ga'ned a glorious victory upon the soil of our beloved sister State
of South Carolina.
It may noi be known to tlie senntor, but it is very well known to the Gen-
eral of the armies of the UniteA States to-day, that while he was invading
Georgia avd pressing us to the very last ditch he sent a messenger to invite
me to a conference with him, with a view to an adjustment, and I declined
to hold it, saying I had no power to speak for the Confederacy, and that
Georgii, having gone into the contest with her Confederate sisters, would he
the last to retire and leave them in the lurch. No; 1 was not untrue to the
Coijftderate cause; I spurn the imputation; nor were the troops of Georgia
unt.rn^. The militia of Georgia acted gnllantly in its defence till the last
'r.oraent. Therefore that charge made by the honorable senator falls to the
ground as grossly unjust and absolutely untrue.
But the senator says at the end of the war T acted with the Republican
party for a time. I stated that the other day. There was nothing new in it.
I also stated the other day the reasons why I did it. It has never been ques-
tioned that I did it. He says, however, that when the Democracy went after
rne he retired. There is a little mistake just there in dates. If I understand
the senator from Virginia correctly, he never retired from the Democracy,
nor was he ever lacking in his zeal f(^r the Democracy, until he was beaten
for governor, in the Democratic convention of 1877. I returned to the De-
mocracy, or they returned to me, whichever you choose to call it, in 1872,
ivhen they planted themselves upon the reconstruction platform and nomi-
nated Greeley, and I have acted steadily with them from that day until this,
in no instance varying from my loyalty to the party or failing to stand by its
organization and its principles. I do not think tlie senator quit it until his
defeat for governor. He felt possibly a little of that ambition that he errone-
ously attributes to me when he says that I wanted to be President of the
Confederate States. He did want, if we may judge him by his acts, to be
Governor of Virginia, and failed. Up to that period who had ever heard
that he was a readjusterV Since that period, if he is correctly reported — T
do not know whether he is or not, but I take the evidence before me and pre-
sume it to be correct — he did not oppose the payment of the thirty-two mill-
ions of debt by Virginia, but only advocated, even after that period, I believe
it was, a reduction of the interest to three per cent. I will ask the clerk to
634 APPENDIX.
read a slip that T send him, wliicli is reported to be an extract from the speech
of General William Mai^one, at Mnzait Hall.
Tlie Ciiief Clerk read as'iO.'.'ows :
•'Impoverished and disheartened as are our people, onerous and oppressive
as is the present rate of taxation, oPpo>ed as I liave been and still am to
such increase, thereof, and certain as'I am that such increase to some extent
mut^t be necessary after 1880. yet to seC'iie the great object of a sett'ement
of this question"^ and to avoid that direst of all calamities to the State, a
repudiation of its obligations, unless sonje settlement can be arrived at
upon terms at lea^t possible, though difficult of endurance, I would earnestly
advise this people to accept a pennanent settlement at 3 per cent, believing
that they could, if called upon, see that (he quiet and repose pained thereby
would counterbalance the hardsliips of an incr^ase which they are so little
able to bear. I would use my best endeavors to secure a vote of the people
sanctioninjr a settlement at 3 per cent, for forty-five jears on the basis of
832,977. < 90.02. Antl this settlement beinj; ratified, I would enforce it by
t'le Legislature and courts, whose powers I believe to be fully adequate
thereto. 1 would do so because I believe it to be right, because I Iteheve
it is the only way to avoid consequences we would all regret deeply, because
I believe it is to the best interest of the bondholders and the t;ix-payer,
and because I believe it is a duty we owe to the Commonwealth of Vir-
ginia."
Mr. Brown. If that be the correct extract from the speech of tbe .senator
from Virginia at Muzart Hall, he stood then for the payment of a debt ol §32,-
000,000 and over, with 3 per cent, interest. *IIe was not then a readjuster, and
possibly his position on that subject since may be as inconsistent as sOme of my
inconsistencies to which he has referred, and in that connection let me refer
to one or two other of his charges.
He says I accepted the position of chief justice of my State from a carpet-
bag governor. VVhile I was acting with the Republican party I did Accept
the position of chief justice of my State from the governor and senate of
Georgia. The gentleman who occupied the position of governor av Che
time it is true was a Northern man bv birth, but he had been many years in
Georgia before the war and was president of a railroad company in Georgia
at the time he was elected governor, and I believe also superintendent of
an express company. He was a business man there and not regarded as a
carpet-bagger at the time.
However, the senator says that I then resigned that position and accepted
the presidency of a railroad company. That is true. I had a twelve years'
term as chief justice ; I had served less than three years when my health
began to fail on account of the labor and close confinement, and I did resign
the high position I held and took charge of a railroad as jiresident. But
the history of the railroad of which I am president and that of the one of
which the senator from Virginia has been president are a little different.
The one I took charge of has been a fiu;incial succe.ss; I have taken care of
the interest of its stockholders; I have made the .stock good to thetn ; 1 have
paid its bonds and coupons promptly as they fell due, and it is doing well
to-day. The railroad of which the honorable senator from Virginia was
president I think has not so well served the interest of the stockholders, or
even of all the bondholders, as it has gone into bankruptcy and had to be
sold out for its debts. That is the difference between the senator from Vir-
ginia and myself on the railroad question. [Laughter.]
The senator turned a period or two upon the suliject of bargains, and
seemed a little in fear of competition in that line. But I beg to assure him
that he has no reason to apprehend danger on that subject. Neither I uor
APPENDIX. 635
any other senator is likely at anv time to be his competitor when there is
occasion for bargain and sale. He went out of his way to state that there
was dissatisfaction with my appointment to the senate at the time it was
made by Governor Colquitt, of Georgia, and gave by indirection his sanc-
tion to a groundless charge that there was some sort of an improper under-
standing between me, Governor Colquitt, and General Gordon on that
subject. Our enemies fabricated a well-known falsehood, alleging that
there was an improper understanding between us. We each stamped it as
a falsehood and Fent the denial with the evidence to the country. As stated
by the senator from Virginia, theie were two or three indignation meetings
held in Georgia, gotten up by a few of our enemies, to denounce Governor
Colquitt on account of my appointment. The people of Georgia were indig-
nant at the injustice done by those meetings. We both appealed to the
people, Governor Colquitt as a candidate for governor, and I as a candidate
for United States senator. There is no allegation in any quarter tliat any-
body was prevented from voting. Ko one pretends to deny that there was
a free vote and a fair count. Every qualified voter in the State who de-
sired to do so came to the polls. My position was fully defined. I announced
myself in favor, as I have been for years, of the strictest conformity to the
reconstruction measures, in the utmost good faith, aiid of scrupulous fidelity
in the execution of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments to
the Constitution of the United States with the protection of every legal right
of every citizen. What was the result? Governor Colquitt was re-elected
as the executive of our State by a majority of 55.0' 0, and I was elected to
this senate by over two-thirds of the representatives of the people. The
gentleman is welcome to all he can make out of that charge. There was
no sailing under false colors. I ran as a Democrat upon this liberal, progres-
sive line ; I was elected as a Democrat upon that line, and I expect in good
faith to so continue.
But, Mr. President, the senator from Virginia was very indignant yester-
day ; he was hurling b ick at everybody on this side of the House the state-
ment that there had been any bargain or contract between him and the
Republicans. I have not asserted it. I did say the other day in debate
that the air was full of rumors of that cliaracter. I think no gentleman
who walks the streets of the city of Washington or reads the newspapers of
the Union to-day will doubt that that statement was correct. Not only is
the air full of rumors, but it is on every tongue that there has been a con-
tract of tiiat sort. I have not said it was true, but I take it the statement
I made and the obstructions that I threw in the way of carrying out the
contract, if it exists, must have had some effect. I think, in a word, I did
hit cock sparrow, for it is said the feathers flew, and it seems that the ball
has left a little sore.
But first the senator palliates his position on repudiation by saying that
other States have been guilty of repudiation. Well, other Southern States
have thrown off certain burdens that were put upon them during the recon-
struction period by carpet-baggers, as they think, or by the reconstruction
Legislatures, where those in power thought the debt was not an honest one.
But Virginia can plead no such palliation. I do not understand that her
debt was increased to any considerable extent during the reconstruction
period. Her debt is the old debt of Virginia, for which she received value
dollar for dollar. She got it in the building of railroads, her various inter-
nal improvements, etc. She made the debt when there was no question
about the consideration, and it would seem that she is less justifiable in re-
pudiating a portion of it than other Southern States would be in repudiating
a portion of the reconstruction debt where they got no just consideration for it.
636 APPENDIX.
So mucli for repudiation in Virginia.
_ The senator says there has been no contract between him and the Repub-
licans. I do not affirm that there has been, but I reiterate what I liave said
before, the air is full of rumors to that effect, and I believe to-day that a
very large majority of the American people are of the opinion, whether
truly or not, that there has been such a contract. Well, going on the supposi-
tion that it exists, let us see what are the evidences of it. A strong chain of
circumstances, connecting well with each other, is the most conclusive kind
of proof. Many a man has been convicted of high crime upon circumstan-
tial evidence, and justly convicted. Without any assertion as to whether
there has been a contract or not, let me refer to some of the proofs that
seem to establish that fact.
In the first place the senator from Virginia was a Democrat, a true Dem-
ocrat, as he always convinced his people up to the time, as I have already
stated, of his defeat for governor by the Democratic convention. After that
it is true he commenced finding fault; and although he took position for
paying $32.000,000 of debt at 3 percent., he afterward changed that, because
it was necessary to make a stronger point against the Democrats ot Virginia,
and he took a position for readjusting tiiat amount and for reduciiu^ it in
round numbersi|12,0i)0,000. The first was to be a readjustment with the con-
sent of the creditors, taking off one-third, as I understand, for West Vir-
ginia. The last readjustment, if I understand the question, was 812,000,000
more to be stricken off absolutely without cousultiuu' the creditors, or with-
out their consent. The Republicans formerly called that repudiation. In
fact, in my own State to-day, though she does not owe $12,000,000, if she
were to strike off f 10,000,000 at on« stroke of the pen without consulting
the creditors. I pre.-ume the Republican presses of the Xorth and of the South
would say that Georgia had repudiated that much. We might call it read-
justment ; but they would still insist that it was repudiation.
But I have never understood yet that the Republican party approved of
the repudiation by the other Southern States of the debt contracted during
the reconstruction period for which no consideration was paid. No; I think
the Republican party has stood par excellence as a party of debt-payers.
They have held that all debts ought to be paid everywhere; audit does
seem the spectacle is a little novel when they take up a repudiatiouist and
a Democrat as their candidate for an important office in the senate. People
will naturally say this needs explanation.
But let us go along with this case. When the honorable senator from
Virginia came to_ Washington nobody here knew, at least the public did not
know, what position he was going to occupy. He had always claimed to be
a Deniocrat in his State up to 1877, and though he had separated from the
organization after that time and establi.^hed a readjusting party, yet when
the two candidates for president were put into the field "last summer, and
he had, as we thought generally we had, good reason to believe that General
Hancock would be elected, and would have the distribution of the patron-
age, he rallied under the Hancock banner, and his man Riddleberger stood
with him. Yes, they were the very essence of Democracy; they were the
the leaders, as they claimed, of the Democracy of the Old Dominion.
And it is said— 1 do not know that fact — that communications between
those leaders of the Virginia Democracy, (General Mahone, Mr. Riddleber-
ger, and others, were kept up with the Democratic executive committee,
and even with Gem^ral Hancock, holding out the idea that they were the
true Democracy and could carry Virginia for him. But we c;innot always
tell what the tide of fortune will do. It turned the other way this time,
and contrary to our hopes and expectations the Republican candidate was
APPENDIX. 637
elected. Then the senator from Virginia was silent on liis Democracy until
he came here ; no one seemed to be able to locate him. After he got here, the
air was full of rumors that there were conferences going on all the time
between him and certain Republican leaders, and it was said on all sides
again aud again — I cannot say with what justice — that ]\lr. Goihani, who is
now nominated for secretary of this body, was in very constant communi-
cation with hiin ; that they were good friends, so much so that some of the
newspapers have even said that Mr, Gorhaiu was his political wet-nurse.
[Laughter.] I do not know anything about whether that is true, but it is
evident they were great friends, as everybody admits.
Negotiations or interchange of visits, or whatever they might have been,
went on between him and various parties until there was a Kepublican
caucus. The same rumor is that while the Republican senators were meet-
ing in one room caucusing the honorable senator from Virginia was in another
room in this building, and that tliere was frequent comnmnication between
them, a going back and forth, consultation, as it seemed to be understood.
What was the result? The result was that Mr. Gorhani, this special friend
of the senator from Virginia, was nominated for secretary of the senate.
And who is Mr. Gorhain? I understand he was once secretary of the sen-
ate and an ardent Republican. Since that time, if the newspapers are to
be credited, he went to his State, California, bolted the Republican organi-
zation, supported Dr. Glenn, the Democratic candidate for governor, and
was in e&ct read out of tlie Republican party there. Still he was the
intimate friend of the senator from Virginia, and when the caucus ad-
journed it soon came to light that he had been taken up by the Republicans
again, rebaptized again into the faith I presume, and nom mated as their
choice above all men for secretary of this senate.
Again, Mr. Riddleberger — and I presume he is a very clever gentleman —
who had been a Democrat all the time, as I understand, in Virginia, and in
the late contest, though a readjuster, was not only a Hancock man, but one
of the electors for the State at large for Hancock and English, who worked
and did all he could to defeat your candidates. He was the right-hand man
of the senator from Virginia; and when the caucus adjourned it soon came
to light that by some marvellous sort of change — I do not know how; a
son of hocus-pocus — he had become one of the leading Republicans of the
United States, transformed in a very short lime, and he had been selected
in preference to all living men, out of about four and a half millions of Re-
publicans in the United States. Yes, Mr. Riddleberger had been agreed on
by the senatorial caucus of the Republican party and presented as the
Republican candidate for the sergeant-at-arms of this senate.
1 say a man has a right to change his opinions. I have exercised that
right ni the past, I admit. I may do it again in the future, whenever I
think I ought to do it. A man is a Bourbon who never changes; but it is
not usual, I must say, for a new convert who has just now changed over to
be so much favored by the party with whom he has just united. I do not
know fur what distinguished services, but for some good reason, no doubt,
Mr. Riddleberger, of Virginia, this life-long Democrat, this Hancock elector
for the State at large, is chosen by the senatorial caucus of the Republican
party as their first choice for the position of sergeant-at-arms.
It may be I have been a little too fa?t ; that I have got a little ahead, I
have shown the result of the Republican caucus possibly without showing
the consideration, as I am now proving the bargain. Before that time there
was an election here for the committees of the senate. We being in power
on this side had attempted to organize those committees. You on that side
had filibustered for nearly two weeks, because you were not ready, and we
638 APPENDIX.
could not go on with the regular business of the senate. When you reached
the time, however, that you filled all your Republican vacancies and the
senator from Virginia [Mr. Mahone] had come fully into your embrace, you
were then ready, and you went forward with the organization of the com-
mittees. As committees were necessary, we offered no dilatory resistance.
Mr. Coiikling. Will the senator allow me to inquire one moment —
Mr. Brown. Ko, sir, I will not permit any inteiruption.
Mr. Conkling. I will accept that if the senator wishes it to stand there.
I was about to ask him to correct a statement of his own, but if he does not
wish to be corrected I certainly shall not interrupt him.
Mr. Brown. If I have made any misstatement, 1, of course, yield.
Mr. Conkling. I thiuk the honorable senator made a grave misstatement,
and I feel quite sure an inadvertent one.
Mr. Brown. I yield with great pleasure If for the purpose of correcting a
misstatement.
Mr. Conkling. I understood the senator to assert that this side of the
chamber for two weeks had filibustered. .
Mr. Brown. I said for nearly two weeks.
Mr. Conkling. The senator is equally inexact. I rose to remind the hon-
orable senator that without any motion on the other side to take up the
resolution to which he refers, organizing the senate, a good many days
elapsed, and that it was not until the week when the seats became full that
delays were suggested on this side; so that instead of its being a delay for
two weeks or nearly two weeks it was for less than one week. I think the
senator would hardly, upon his attention being called to it, like to make so
broad and I think so unjust a statement.
Mr. Brown. Whether I am right or the senator is right as to the exact
time the Record will show. Of course I have no disposition to misstate
the case.
Mr. Conkling. So I supposed.
Mr. Brown. The senator from New York, however, will not deny that
there was filibustering on his side to j^revent the election of the couimittees.
I may be in error about the length of time.
Mr. Conkling. If the senator will not feel it an imputation, T will with
great respect to him deny that there was filibustering, and I will aflirm that
in place of there being filibustering there was some earnestness of protest
on this side against proceeding at a day so late as it liad then come to be,
when senators who had been elected to vacant chairs were some of them
already on their way to this capitol; but I tliink tliat protest and that
remonstrance fell very far short of what I understand to be filibustering ; so
that vvittiout meaning to do it offensively to the senator at all, I do respect-
fully deny that there was filibustering.
Air. Brown. The senator from New York calls the same tiling by a differ-
ent name, and I am willing for him to have his own opinion about it. It is
very evident that motions to adjourn and motions to go into executive ses-
sion alternately were made liere by the senator from Pennsylvania from day
to day. We call it filibustering; we did at tiie time. I believe that is what
you call it now when we interpose such objections. Therefore, I still say
that, according to my interpretation of that .sort of conduct, it was filibus-
tering. It was delay ; it was fighting for time to get the power to carry out
tiie purpose. You would, I suppose, call it filibustering when done by the
Democrats, and an effort to secure delay when done by the Republicans.
We call the same thing by the same name in both cases.
But I will proceed witli my narrative. I am going on with the evidence of
this contract, and I do not care to be interrupted unless I should iuadvert-
APPENDIX. 639
ently make some error in my statement. We heard the senator from Vir-
ginia yesterday three hours, and noboily interrupted liini once.
Mr. Conkling. I beg tlie honorable senator's pardon.
]\Ir. Brown. Not at all.
IMr. Conkling. The senator from Georgia is speaking extemporaneously,
and as he is a very practical debater it never occurred to me that it would
be a serious inconvenience to him to have his attention called to an inad-
vertent inaccuracy of statement.
Mr. Brown. It has not been by any means. The senator and T only differ
about the accuracy of the statement as it is a question of time. I may have
said tiiat it went on for a little longer than was the case. Tlie Record may
show that I am right, or it may show tliat the senator is right on that par-
ticular point. lie is entitled to his opinion and his recollection of that, and
so am I. That point is not at all impoitaut in this instance.
We did reach a time when we came to a vote on the question of the organi-
zation of the committees of the senate. There were thirty-seven Democrats
and thirty-seven Republicans in this chamber. The vice-president is a
Republican, The senator from Virginia had always been a Democrat up to
the end of the Hancock and (Jarfieltl campaign, if we may jndge him by his
conduct and profession daring that campaign. Coming here trom that sort
of field, with that kind of prt-cedent and course of conduct, with those ante-
cedents, he left the Democratic party and voted with the Republicans for
the organization of every committee just as they proposed to organize the
committees. Every vote that he has cast in this chamber since that time
has been on the same line. He has never voted with the Democracy a
single time.
^ow, when we take into the account the two things and put them together,
it is a, peculiar coincidfnce, to say the least of it, that the senator Ironi Vir-
ginia, always a Democrat up to a very late period, should vote with the
Republicans on the organization of every committee, and that lie shoiUd con-
tinue to vote with them on every issue since that time; and then in a very
short time afterward, that they should meet in caucus and nominate his inti-
mate friend Gorham, who had bolted their party a year or two ago and been
read out, and Riddleberger, who had always been a Democrat, a Hancock
elector, who was his bosonr friend and his right hand man, and should put
them forward here as the Republican candidates, — I say, there is a very
peculiar coincidence about it, to say the least, it may have been no bargain;
it may not have been even a capital understanding; but I will call it a coin-
cidfiicp. It is just one of those things that happen sometimes in life, I sup-
pose ; but there is something about it peculiar that it should happen under
such circumstances.
But there is another point about it which is a little peculiar. It has not
been the habit of the senate to reorganize tlie officers of the .senate at an
executive session. There was one exception to that rule in 1853, when, the
tradition says, there was a man in one of the positions who did not give
satisfaction, who was not considered worthy, and they took the matter up at
that executive session and went into a reorganization, dismissed' him, and
put another man in his place belonging to the same party, and re-elected all
of the other officers. Therefore, according to the precedents, it is not usual
at this time to reorganize the officers of the senate. It is usual to wait until
the business session of the two houses. But after tlie peculiar coincidence
tliat I have spoken of it seems to become essentially necessary in this case —
supremely important — that we shoidd reorganize the officers of the senate
now and elect these two special friends of the senator from Virginia.
True, as I stated the other day, there are very important nominations
640 APPENDIX.
before us that it is ihe custom of the senate to act on at tliis time. We are
called together by the president of the United States tor that very purpose.
That is what we are here for. There is a vacancy upon the supreme bench
of the United States, and I am informed that court adjourned to-day for
want of a quorum. There is a vacancy, as I have stated heretofore, in the
court of claims. Tliere is a vacancy in the position of the circuit judge of
the fifth judicial circuit, where in my own town the term is running and the
judge ought to be there. The district judge is sick, and not able to attend
to the duties. A judge from another State is there to do district judge's
duty, and the United States circuit judge is needed there to hold his court.
Public ministers and other important officers have been nominated, and it is
our duty to act upon the nominations. But these matters are insignificant
compared with the overwhelming importance of electing a secretary of the
senate and a sergeant-at-arms who are the bosom friends and right-hand
men of the senator from Virginia. These other matters that I speak of may
be important questions, but they sink into insignificance compared with the
great importance of electing these officers liere contrary to general usage.
That is another coincidence in this matter — another peculiarity about it.
Again I ask, why in the first place should these two men have been
selected by the Republican caucus over everybody else under these peculiar
circumstances; and then why should this stubhorn fight be made for their
ratification over all the other important nominations before us, and over the
importance of three or four treaties with foreign powers? There is another
coincidence that is a little peculiar; it happens so, I suppose; still the
people of the United States will naturally inquire why these thitigs are so.
Why is it so? The people of the United States are an inquisitive people;
they will look into this sor(»of thing. We have an energetic press; thej^ are
always inquiring; and now these coincidences that are denied to be a con-
tract have been taken up by tliem, and all around they say it was a contract,
and some of them even say it was a corrupt bargain. 1 have not said so, but
I see it in the papers.
I presume it is these peculiar coincidences that cause people to think there
was a bargain and sale here. There is one point about it, however, if it is
a bargain, (and all these facts and circumstances look very much that way.)
we do not on tliis side of the house intend to be parties to it. If there has
been a bargain and sale here, and the contract has been carried out on one
side, we will not help to deliver the goods to the other side. We will stay
here a long time first.
We have just reasons for remaining here to prevent the turning out of
good officers of the senate (when you have half of them and we half) in
violation of the gener.d usage ; but we have still higher reasons, yes, infi-
nitely higher, for preventing the consummatit)n of what looks to the country
to be, what the people of the United States believe to be, a contract for the
election of these men on account of a consideration received by the other
side. If there has been such an arrangement, whether it is to be dignified
by the term C(nitract or not, then I believe we reflect the popular will when
we stay here and say we will never be a party to it nor see it consummated
while we have power to prevent it. I believe we are right when we stay
here, and call the attention of the American people to this extraordinary
coincidence.
All this may be, as I have said, mere happen-so, but it does not look right.
There is something about it that I do not fancy. It reminds me of a story
that it may not be quite proper to relate here, of a 'coon and a polecat,
sometimes called the skunk. It is said that a 'coon left his house one day
and went in quest of food. On his return he found some other animal down
APPENDIX. 641
in the hollow of the tree where his home was. He thought it was a cat, and
challenged it by saying, "A cat?" '"No," said the polecat ; " I am a 'coon."
Said the 'coon, "You don't look like a 'coon." He replied, "But I am a
'coon." Said the 'coon, "You don't talk like a 'coon." He repeated, " But
I am a 'coon." "Ugh," said the 'coon, "you don't smell like a 'coon, and
you are not a 'coon." [Laughter.] This transaction does not look like it
was a proper transaction, ami it does not smell like a cle;in transaction, and
we do not intend to be a party to it. We will do all in our power to prevent
its consummation.
It may be that all this ado about it is without foundation, but I think if
this matter were put on trial before a jury of the country and the issue was
whether the contract could be established, we might apply to it the usual
rules of evidence for practice and have no hesitation in going before a jury
and claiming a verdict. I am not sure that we could not go further. 1 am
not very fresh fiom my reading of Blackstone, Starkie, and some of the older
authorities, but if I recollect, I think it is in Starkie on Evidence,_probubly
iu reference to criminal cases, the rule is laid down that the evidence must
not only be consistent with the hypothesis of the guilt of the prisoner, but
inconsistent with every other reasonable hypothesis. I think the evidence
here is not only consistent with the hypothesis of a contract, but it seems to
my mind to be inconsistent with every other reasonable hypothesis. There-
fore, applying the rules in a criminal ca;<e to it, 1 think we should convict
the defendants, the parties to the contract.
I think I can see in the sedate manner and grave appearance of some of
my friends on the other side of this chamber that they feel tiiey are a little
in the condition of the man who caught the wolf. After scuffling with it a
good while he called upon his friends to come and help him let it loose. Or
it may be that you are a little nearer the condition of the man who won the
elephant at a raffle. He got him, but he did not know what to do with him,
and he was in great trepidation about it. Y'ou have won the elephant iu
this case, and it seems to me you are not in very good condition to get rid
of him, for if you do not stand by his friends and elect them to office he may
turn upon you and rend every chairman of you, and turn you all off from
the heads of the committees.
Possibly I am wrong about that. It may be that you are in the better
condition of the astronomer who looked through his telescope at the moon,
and after gazing at it for a time he told his friends that he saw a large ele-
phant upon the surface of the moon. His friends said, "That is impossible."
The astronomer looked again. "Yes," said he, "there is a large elepiiant
on the surface of the moon; I not only see it, but I saw it move just that
minute." His friends gathered around him then and there was great excite-
ment, and it was a very great problem how it could have come there or why
it had never been seen before. At length some one looking carefully found
that there was a mouse between the lenses of the instrument, and it turned
out that instead of having found an elephant on the surface of the moon, the
astronomer had a mouse in his telescope. [Laughter.] I think it is possible
that my friends on the other side have not the elephant they think they have
caught. I believe they could let him loose, and possibly in the end it would
turn out instead of a huge elephant to be the diminutive form of a little
mouse.
I know the condition may be somewhat embarrassing, and I do not wish
to see our friends on the other side embarrassed. But this peculiar coin-
cidence, this strange state of things that has come along heie, that nobody
can account for, that made our friends over there the chairmen of the differ-
ent committees that are generally given to the majority, that gave them the
41
C42 APPENDIX.
control of the committees and business of the senate, that gave the Fenator
from Virf;inia the chairmanship of the committee he desired, that put him
on several other important committees, that was followed hy the noniiiintion
of iiis friends, one of them a Democrat, for these offices — I say this strange
coincidence may be and doubtless is somewhat embarra-sing, and I sympa-
thize with our friends in their embarrassment, but I must still reiterate that
we cannot aiford to make ourselves parties to it, and while we dislike to sub-
mit to tlie personal inconvenience of remaining here, or to subject tliose on
the other side to that inconvenience, we feel it is our duty to stay here what-
ever time may be necessary to prevent the consummation of what the public
believe to be a bargain and sale, or at least to prevent the election of tlie*e
caucus candidates who have been nominated under this strange coincidence.
Speech of Honorable Joseph E. Brown, of Georgia, delivered in
THE Senate of the United Statpzs, April 14, 1«81, on a Free
Ballot and a Fair Count. Colored citizens in the South have
greater freedom of ballot than a large class of white citi-
zens IN New England have. The effort of the Republicans
to reconstruct and radicalize the South discussed. Indepen-
dent Democrats of the South, supporting indkpendent candi-
dates because they wkre not content with the caucus system
as practiced, did not staut to follow independent leaders in-
to the Republican camp, and would not do so if invited.
Rights of the colored citizens discussed. The Rkpublican
party has done justice neither to them nor to the white
Republicans of the South. Some interesting figures.
The Senate having under consideration tlie resolutions submitted by Mr. Dawes in
relation to the election of otticers of the Senate —
Mr. Brown said :
Mr. President: At the end of what was known or must now be classed
as the war of the rebellion because it was unsuccessful, the (Tovernnient of
the United States was iu the iiands and under the control of the Republican
party, and 1 admit they had very difficult problems to deal with in reorgan-
izing the machinery of government and putting it into operation again.
Whether they dealt wisely or unwisely has been a question for the people to
determine and is yet a question of debate. They thought proper to pass
what were termed the reconstruction bills into laws. Those acts disfran-
chised and drove from the ballot-box, in the elections for the conventions
that were to form constitutions for the Southern people to live under, proba-
bly two hundred thousand of the most intelligent, cultivated, and educated
people of the South, including all persons who had ever taken an oath in any
office to support the Constitution of the United States and had afterward iu
any way whatever aided the war of the rebellion. I fell in that class, and I
stood by and saw my negroes, or those that had been mine, vote in the elec-
tion for members of the convention who were to form a constitution under
which I was .to live while I was excluded from the polls. There may have
been — I do not say there was not — " a fair count " then, but there was not a
very "free ballot." It was free, however, to all the males of the colored race
who were twenty-one years of age and uj>\vard. They all had tlie right to
come to the balloti-box and exercise the suffrage; I think they were generally
there.
At a subsequent period, however, the grave question arose as to wliether
these mere acts of Congress were enough on this subject, and it was found
APPENDIX. 643
by the Republican party that it was necessary to propose a constitutional
a iiendment that would guaranty to all persons, without regard to race, color,
or previous condition of servitude, equal rights at the ballot-box.
These measures were regarded very liard measures by the people of the
South. I thouglit so; but having taken part in what is to be termed the re-
bellion, I recognized the Government of the United States as my conqueror,
and when these terms were dictated I acquiesced in them and advised my
people to do so, and I think they committed an error — but there is a differ-
ence of opinion about that — in not promptly accepting those terms. I think
the mistake we made when you put the suffrage into the hands of the colored
race was that we indicated displeasure at it. 'J"he colored people were onr
friends, and we were their friends; but when our people — and it was the
most natural thing on earth that they should have taken the course under all
the circumstances — thought proper to make an issue on this question ; and
tie carpet-bagger — and by that term I do not mean the Northern man who
<;ame South for any honest purpose, but the man who could not have been
elected constable in Massachusetts or Ohio, who came down to the South
simply for the purpose of taking charge of the colored people and securing
their su[)port for the promotion of his ambition or his interest — when the car-
pet-bagger took our former slaves into the out-houses or school-houses at
night and swore them into the Union Leagues, they were taught to believe
that on that question our people were not their friends ; and it was probably
verv natural that they followed this class of Northern men who said to them,
" The Government of the United States has given you the right of suffrage
and we are here to see that you have it."
At that day I took position for absolute acquiescence in the reconstruction
measures, and in the dictation of my conqueror, I sa'd the terms were hard,
but I believed it was better to accept them promptly; I recognized your
power to dictate them, and I thereupon, after the passage of the fifteenth
amendment, took position for " a free ballot and a fair count " in Georgia
and all over the South, and I have stood there from that day to this, and I
stood there at a time when, to say the least, it was a matter of some incon-
venience to a man to stand there.
My friend on my left asks, where did the senator from Virginia stand? I
understand him to ask where did the new Republican senator from Virginia
then stand? I do not know. I was noticing Georgia matters then more
than Virginia matters; but I had always been under the impression that he
stood with the Democracy at the time when I temporarily separated myself
from them upon that issue, and that he then voted with those opposed to the
reconstruction measures.
Times have changed. The past j'ear I entered the senate under an ex-
ecutive ap[iointment. There were those in Georgia to whom that appoint-
ment was very distasteful and, as I stated the other day, there were popular
demonstrations in two or three counties against the governor of the State
for having tendered me that appointment. The governor appealed to the
people u{>on that issue, and I appealed to them also, and announced myself
a candidate for election to the Senate of the United States. What was the
result? Two Democrats ran for the office of governor; both planted them-
selves fairly and squarely on the line of "a free ballot and a fair count," and
I think I may say with perfect propriety that at no time in any State in this
Union has there been a fairer election or a fairer count. No one has com-
plained, so far as I have heard, of either party, that anybody was excluded
from the polls who had a right to come there, or that there was coercion, or
that there was any unfairness of any character. Members of the Legislature
644 APPENDIX.
were elected in tlie same manner ; and when the Legislature met, standing
as I did before them as a Democratic candidate for the United States senate,
I received a majority of more than two-thirds of the Legislature; every Re-
publican ill the body and nearly two-thirds of the Democratic members voted
for me.
Then I affirm in the senate chamber to-day that the Democracy of Georgia
stand fairly and squarely upon the doctrine of " a free ballot and a fair
count," and that they practice it. My colleague has announced tlie same
doctrine. There is no division among us on that question, and it is not
probable that there can ever again be such a division. All that is said in
reference to any unfairness in elections there, or any disposition on the part
of tlie Democracy of tliat State to drive from the ballot-box any one entitled
to vote, is gratuitous and unfounded.
The Iionorable senator from Connecticut [Mr, Hawley], in his very able
and eloquent speech, the other day, on the Republican side of this chamber,
said :
"The South, the solid South, declares that the fifteenth amendment is a
failure, that it cannot be executed in letter and spirit."
I deny it. With all due respect to my honorable friend I say the South,
the solid South, occupies no such ground, and takes no such position. Tlieie
is no place on the face of the earth to-day in any civilized government where
there is a freer ballot ; and there is no question about it that the fifteenth
amendment is acknowledged to be binding, and in practice that it is faith-
fully carried out.
The same honorable senator said:
"I come back to the great fact which you, sir, and T, and every man in
this land must accept, and may as well make up his mind this hour to ac-
cept, now and hereafter, that universal suffrage is the law of the world of late,
and is the irreversible law of this Republic to-day."
I deny that, too. Universal suffrage is not the law of the world at present,
and never was, nor is it the law of any civilized government in the world.
Universal suti'rage is not the law of this Republic to day, and never has been.
I admit it is manhood suffrage in most of the Southern States, and each
male citizen, twenty-one years of age, without regard to race, color, or pre-
vious condition of servitude, may go to the polls and vote; but it is not the
law of Connecticut; it is not the law of Massachusetts, and it is not the law
of Rhode Island.
Senators from those States have said and said properly, that the States
have a right for themselves to regulate this question. That they have a
right to say what restrictions or qualifications shall be put upon suffrage, I
admit; and much as State rights may have trailed in the dust, and much as
they may have been overridden and downtrodden, I am glad to see Massa-
chusetts and the other New England States come up and take the lead in the
affirmance of that doctrine. I desire to do no injustice to your States. As
1 have already said on this floor, I admire your, industry, I admire your
thrift, I admire your enterprise, I especially admire your educational sys-
tems, your colleges, your universities, all that you have done for the civiliza-
tion of the country and of the age in wliich we live. 1 admit that you are
a great people, and that you are a powerful people ; but while that is true,
and you have ample time to attend to your own business and do it well, I
think you appropriate a little too much of your time in attention to dihcr
people's business. Now if you would only be content that other pco| le of
other States exercise the same privileges and rights that you claim for your-
selves on that subject, to regulate this question for themselves, and if you
would be content for us to carry out an important principle of the constitu-
APPENDIX. 645
tion of IMassachusetts — I do not say whether a wise one or not — probably we
should all get along better. In the constitution of Massachusetts I find this
languase :
" Wisdom and knowledge as well as virtue diffused generally among the
body of the people being necessary for the preservation of their rights and
liberties; and as these depend on spreading the opportunities and advan-
tages of education, iu the various parts of the country, and among the dif-
ferent orders of the people, it shall be the duty of the Legislatures and
magistrates in all future periods of this Commonwealth to cherish the in-
terests of literature, and the sciences, and all seminaries of learning, etc. —
Con^timiion of Massachusetts, chapter 5."
Here you lay down the doctrine that wisdom, knowledge, and virtue dif-
fused generally among the body of the people are necessary to the rights and
liberties of the people. If you had permitted us to apply that rule in the
South, we should have had less difficulty. You have put upon us by your
legislation an immense mass of ignorant voters. They have not wisdom,
they have not knowledge, some of them even have no virtue, as is the case
in every community. These are not diffused among them ; from the very
nature of the case it cannot be; and yet how anxiously you guard their
rights to go to the polls to make laws for us and to regulate our affairs. You
have, it may be wisely or unwisely, excluded them from the polls in your
States. They must have something of this wisdom, something of this
knowledge, something of this virtue there, before you permit them to go to
your polls. Why? Because I presume you are not willing to trust your
rights, your liberties, your property, all tiiat is dear to you, the very organ-
ization of society itself, in the hands of the more ignorant and less virtuous
part of your people. And in order to protect yourselves there and protect
your property, vvhat have you been compelled to do? You have in carrying
out that very idea I admit — I wish to do you no injustice — placed a wall of
constitutional steel between the men who would exercise manhood suffrage
in Georgia and excluded and driven them from the ballot-box. Your con-
stitution says that no male citizen shall vote until he can read your constitu-
tion in the English language and write his name. Your constitution and
your laws further say — I do not remember whether that is a constitutional
or statutory provision, and I will not misrepresent it — that he must have re-
sided twelve months in your State, if he is a citizen coming in from another
State, before he can vote ; he must have paid a tax assessed against him
within the last two years, and he must be neither a pauper nor under
guardianship.
Now, what is a pauper in your State? I have not found the direct defini-
tion, because I may not be as familiar with your laws as I ought to be with
our own, but I have found a description of a pauper, as I suppose, correctly,
where it is provided who may enter an almshouse, and I there find this
designation :
" Paupers in Massachusetts are poor and indigent persons who are main-
tained by or receive aims from city or town ; who, being able nf body to work,
and not having estate or means otherwise to maintain themselves, refuse or
neglect to work ; who live a </issolute, vagrant life, and exercise no ordinary
calling or lawful business; who spend their time and property in public houses,
to the neglect of their proper business ; or who, by otherwise misspending
what they earn, to the impoverishment of themselves and families, are likely
to become chargeable to the city, etc."
Mr. Hoar. Mr. President —
Mr. Brown. I will permit a reply after I am through ; but I prefer not to
be interrupted.
646 APPENDIX.
Mr. Hoar. Mr. President —
Mr. Brown. I decline to ^ield. If I misstate any matter connected with
Massachusetts the senator will have a fair opportunity to correct me when
he gets the floor. I do not state that this is the definition of a pauper ; I
only find that to get into the ^lassachusetts almshoui-e — and that is where
a pauper generally goes — these seem to be the qualiHcations. But at It-ast
there is a class of people there wlio are known as paupers. It will not be
denied. Now, whether that is the correct definition of a pauper or not, cer-
tainly all wlio fall within the correct definition of a pauper are excluded
from the ballot-box. There may be many or there may be few. But they
are an excluded class.
Then, in reference to spendthrifts : There is a class of persons, as I un-
derstand, in Massachusetts who are spendthrifts, as is the case in every com-
munity unfortunately. You have a provision, probably a very wise one,
there, for appointing guardians for those spendthrifts. The word " spend-
thrift," as your law-books, J believe, say, includes every one who is liable to
be put under guardianship on account of excessive drinking, gaming, idle-
ness, or debauchery, and who spends his property in these vices. I suppose
you execute your laws faithfully, and if you do, all those who indulge in
drink to excess, or indulge in gambling to excess, or in idleness to excess, or
in debauchery to excess, and thereby misspend their property, are under
guardianship as spendthrifts, and they, too, are driven from the ballot-box in
Massachusetts ; it is doubtless a good lung list. There may not be many
paupers. 1 may be wrong and the senators may be right, and they will cor-
rect that if necessary when the proper time comes, in reference to the class
of persons I have been referring to as paupers, but you certainly have some
paupers. If you did not have them you would not make the exception in
tlie statute and say they should not come to the ballot-box ; youceitainly
have a class of spendthrilts that you have provided guardians for, and they
are embraced under your statute with persons who indulge in the vices
already stated —
Mr. Hoar. The senator is mistaken.
]\Ir. Brown. I prefer not to be interrupted now. If I have the wrong
page, or the wrong statute, then I still plant myself on the other statute
wh ch gives the correct definition, not being as familiar with the Massachu-
setts laws as the Massachu>etts lawyers are. You do have a class of people
who are spendthrifts, who are driven from the ballot box; you do have a
class of people who are paupers, who ate driven from the ballot-box — 1 do
not say how many there are; you do have a class of people who have not
been twelve months in your State who were voters in other States before
they come there ; you do have a class of people who if they have not paid
then- tax are driven from the ballot-box; you do have a class of people who
cannot write their names and are therefore driven from the ballot-box ; you
do have another class of people who cannot read the constitution of Massa-
chusetts in the English language, and therefore they are driven from the
ballot-box. There is quite a numerous list of disqualified classis.
Now, on the principle laid down a little while ago that the people of Mas-
sachusetts and New England, being a thrifty people, whom 1 admire very
much, with, as already stated, ample time to attend to their bu-iness and a
good degree of time to attend to other people's, I incline to think that you
have attended pretty well to your part of it in excluding classes that you
think miiiht be dangerous to your institutions at home from the ballot-box.
I do not know how many there are excluded; I have to be governed by the
statement of others on that subject, for I am not familiar with the state of
things there. I can form an estimate, however, fiom the data at my com-
APPENDIX. 647
mand. I read from a speech delivered by the senator from Rhode Island [Mr.
Anthony] during the last session of Congre-^s, who is apt to be very accurate, I
believe, and I suppose very good authority on tliat side of tl)e house. He says :
"A distinguished citizen of Massachusetts has declared that the tax and
educational qualiticatious in that State disfranchised a hundred thou^^and of
its inhabitants, fifty times as many as the census returns render as disquali-
fied by the real-estate qualification in Rhode Island. This gentleman esti-
mates that by tlie enforcement of the fourteenth amendment the represen-
tation of Massachusetts would be reduced from eleven to eight."
That is taken from the statement made by the senator from Rhode Island
in this chamber during the hist session of Congiess. I do not know whetlier
he was right or not. I have so much admiration for liis cliaiacter and for
his accuracy that I will not dispute the point with him; I will take it for
granted that the senator from Rhode Island was right, and that he believed
that the estimate made by this distinguished citizen of Massachusetts was
not very far wrong, or he would not have introduced it here in his argument.
If that be true, then there are 100,00U of the male citizens of Massachusetts
over twenty-one years of age who are barred out by the constitutional in-
closure that you have put around your ballot box, and cannot go to it; they
cannot approach its sacred precincts. But the number may not be l(!0,OfO;
that distinguished citizen of Massacliusetts may have been in error. I heard
that question canvassed somewhat the otlier day when the honorable senator
from Florida [Mr. Call] was discussing this question. I think there it came
down to the point, if I recollect correctly, where you admitted in round
numbers 18,000 of your citizens of foreign birth and native born who are
excluded from the ballot-box on account of their inability to read and write
as required by yotir constitution and laws. That is my recollection of it.
Eighteen thousand is a good round number to be driven from the ballot-box.
All this, as I have stated, may be entirely necessary in your opinion for
the protection of your property and your rights, and for the preservation of
your State institutions; and I am not assailing your right on that point ;
but I only say that there is probably no State in the Union that has so many
qualifications on the right of suffrage, and probably none that bars so many
of the male citizens of twenty-one years of age and upward from the polls.
It is true, as the honorable senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Dawes] stated
a few days ago, that the provision of the constitution in reference to reading
and writing did not apply to those who were voters at the time it was
adopted ; but that was about twenty-three years ago ; so that I suppose those
who were tiien voters have in a great measure passed away, audit does apply
to much the greater portion now.
Just in that connection let me state another fact. You are very exacting
about the right of the negro to vote in the South. If my State to-morrow
were to apply the rule of suffrage that is applied in Massachusetts to the
colored people of Georgia, we sliould drive more than eight tenths of the
whole number from the polls. Take the colored citizens of Georgia to-day
over twenty-one years of age and let them move to Massachusetts, as they
have a right to do, because they are entitled to all the rights, privileges, and
immunities of citizens in the several States — let them locate in Massachu-
setts, and you drive eight tenths of them from the polls, and will not let
them vote. Why? Because they cannot read the constitution of your State
in the English language, and tliey cannot write their names ; and therefore
it is very well to give tlie negroes of the South the right of manhood suffrage
and to insist upon it, but it will not do in IMassacliusetts. I do not know
how many of the colored race there are there that are disfranchised. AIL
who come within any of the exceptions I have mentioned are, however.
648 APPENDIX.
But I say, take the Southern colored men and transfer their citizenship to
Massachusetts, and as they have had no chance to learn to read and write,
if they were tliere now, as tliey cannot labor for tlieir livinor and learn, —
indeed many of them are not trying to do it, — they would be driven from
the polls there by scores and hundreds and thousands. We liave but a singfle
qualification with us, and that is tiie tax qualification, which you have. We
turn none away for any other cause unless tliey be insane persons or con-
victed felons, and most of the Southern States do not even have that
qualification.
Mr. Dawes. IIow much is that?
Mr. Brown. There is a small number. If there were one hundred in the
last gubernatorial election in Georgia excluded from the polls in consequence
of the non-payment of the tax I have never heard of it, and I do not believe
there were so many.
There is another point I will notice, Mr. President. All this ado about
suffrage has but one object: it is to try to republicanize the South by the
use of the negro. We might as well deal plainly about the facts. Let us
examine the negro question a little. You did not enter into the war for the
purpose of setting the negro free. He is not indebted to any of your j^ood
intentions at the time you entered tlie struggle for his freedom. You dis-
tinctly proclaimed to the world that that was not one of the objects even of
making war on the Southern States. The reason given, and no doubt the
one you meant at the time, was the preservation of the Union and the exe-
cution of tlie laws. Within a day or two after the battle of Bull Run you
saved the Border States to your cause, greatly to our regret at the time, by
passing almost a unanimous resolution of both houses here, the purport of
which was that it was not your object in waging war to make conquest or to
interfere with the institutions of tlie Southern States. Had you not done so,
you could neither have carried Maryland nor Kentucky nor Mi.ssouri with
you, and the termination of the struggle might have been different.
Then you were not making war for the benefit of the negro. And near
the end of the struggle, on a very noted occasion, after Mr. Lincoln as a
necessary war measure had issued his Proclamation of Emancipation, at
Hampton Roads conference, as recorded by Mr. Stephens in the second
volume of his History of the War between the States, at a time when all the
parties except Mr. Lincoln were in life — and I have never seen its correct-
ness denied — Mr. Lincoln indicated very clearly to the Southern commis-
>=ioners that while he would take back nothing of Ids proclamation, it was a
doubtful question to be left to the courts whether anybody was set free
except the negroes who had fallen within your lines and had taken part with
you; in other words, whether the emancipation applied to the colored people
within our lines. He even went so far in the kindness of his heart and the
generosity of ids nature — and probably no man ever had nioie of either — as
to indicate his willingness that f 400,00U,0U0 be paid to Southern slaveholders
for their slaves if peace could then be restored. Mr. Seward is reported as
having said at the time that he would bo willing that an amount as large as
the balance of the necessary expenditure in the prosecution of the war should
be paid for the negroes. It is true the Confederate government did not
accept those terms, nor were they tendered in an authoritative shape, but
only spoken of in the conversation as terms that might be agreed upon if
the war could then cease. But I refer to these facts to show that the great
object of the war, even up to the close of it, was not the emanripation of the
negroes. It was, as Mr. Lincoln had said, the rest^jration of the Union and
the execution of the laws.
As another evidence that Mr. Stephens has not mistaken this matter, in
APPENDIX. 649
his place in the House of Representatives on a noted occasion, the uncover-
ing ot F. B. Carpenter's picture, February 12, 1878, he used these remarks,
and I have not seen them c''allenged:
" Emancipation was not the chief object of Mr. Lincoln in issuing the
proclamation. His chief object, the ideal to whicli his whole soul was
devoted, was the preservation of the Union. Let not history confuse events.
That proclamation, prejjiiant as it was with coming evt-nts, initiative as it
was of ultimate emancipation, still originated in point of fact more from
what was deemed the necessities of war than from any pure humanitarian
view of the matter. Life is all a mist, and in the dark our fortunes
meet us."
That has not been challenged. Therefore I take it that I\Ir. Lincoln, even
near the end of the war when he was holding the Hampton Roads conference,
did not make the emancipation a sine qua non. He had other objects in his_
mind. Providence set the colored man free and not the Government of the
United States. You did not expect it, and we Hid not expect it when we
entered into the contest; but God in his mercy and in his benii^n providence
interfered and struck the shackles from the hands of the race and made
them fiee, and I atn glad to-day that it is so; I was not then.
What was your next step? You did not apply to the Southern States the
rule of the Massachusetts constitution, that wisdom and knowledge and
virtue diffused generally among the people were necessary to the preservation
of their rights and libertit^s. You did not apply the Massachusetts rule of
suffrage to the Southern States. Instead of doing that, as already stated, in
the election for delegates who were to form our constitutions, you disfran-
chised the great mass of Southern intelligence, and you turned all the negro
males of twenty-one years and upward loose to the polls. I do not say it
was not wise for you to adopt the rule you did for your home government,
but if it was wise in ^lassachusetts, was it unwise to do it in Georgia? You
may say that the South had been in rebellion, and that that made a diifer-
ence. I give you all the benefit of that. Possibly you were jiistified to some
extent in applying a ditferent rule, but was it not your natural expectation,
and should it not have been the understanding of every onf, that when the
colored race were given the ballot for their own protection, if von saw they
needed it for that, that they should then be left to the usual rules applied to
other citizens?
I want to be candid and intend to be ; I admit that there were outrages
soon after the close of the war. I only wonder there had not been more.
Look at the situation. A proud wealthy people had entered into a contest
in which they had been conquered and had lost probably a greater amount
of property than almost any other people of like number ever lost in a war,
coming out at the end of it almost destitute, with brothers, fathers, husbands,
the cause they had been attached to, lost; everything lost 'J'hen the con-
queror dictated terms of the character I have mentioned, taking the slaves,
without education, and placing them over us, driving us from the ballot-box
and turning them loose to it. Was it woiKlerf'ul that we thought this up-
heaval was sapping the very foundations of society? And was it wonderful,
under tliese circumstances, that there should have been restlessness, that
there should have been Ku Klux, that tliere shotdd have been every effort
to try to maintain something like society organized under the usual rules
that apply in other States?
But that day has passed. There were outrages, I admit it; now there is
as free a ballot as there is in any State in this Union. It has taken years to
reach it. There are still outrages that may occur there (not in reference to
the ballot, however) as there may occur outrages in Massachusetts or in any
650 APPENDIX.
other State; but we execute the laws there, and we are for disposinj^ of the
Ku Klux in any manner tliat is necessary to apply the remedy if they should
raise their heads again. Only last year, near Cochran, Georgia — the case
went tlio rounds in the newspapers — not with any view to politics, as we
understand there, but on account of some grudge that some unworthy men
had against a vei-y worthy, steady, clever old colored man, they put on their
masks, and they surrounded his cabin at night with arms in their hands,
and demanded that he deliver himself up. lie had a double-bari-elhd gun,
it was loaded, he was a good shot, he aimed well, and he fired botli barrels
and killed one at each fire; and there they lay in his yard the next morning
with their n)asks on. His course was applauded by all the white people of
Georgia, so far as I know; the newspapers commented favorably on it, and
expressed the hope that it might always be so when desperadoes gathered
around the home of the humblest colored or white man at night; and I hope
such may be the fate of all wlio may attempt it. He was never even
arrested ; there was nothing done with liim, no legal steps were taken
against him whatever ; I do not know that he remained in the community,
but everybody said he did right. It may have been that he was afraid to
remain on account of the revenge possibly of the friends of those wlio had
been killed ; he probably thought it prudent to move from there, as it would
have been in Massachusetts under similar circumstances, but his act met the
approval of the people of Georgia. In a county of upper Georgia, on account
of a Ku Klux outrage, three men were convicted on circumstantial evidence
of being guilty, and sent to the penitentiary.
Outrages have occurred in Massachusetts. I remember years ago that the
whole country was shocked by a report that a highly cultivated man there, a
man occupying a high position — I refer to Dr. Webster — had for a paltry
sum, probably two or three hundred dollars, killed his fellow-man, a man of
good standing in societj', and to conceal him had even mutilated the body and
attempted to dissolve it by lime and other chemicals.
Mr. Dawes. And he was hung for it.
Mr. Brown. The senator says he was hung for it. I was going to give
you full credit for that; but I want to draw a comparison between that and
a case that occurred in Georgia at a much later period. You executed the
law, I giant, and you did right. Some three or four years ago, in P'loyd
county, Georgia, in which is the city of Rome, a man named Johnson, of one
of the best families of our State, a youne man. reckless and somewhat dissi-
pated, killed a young negro boy under circumstances of very decided cruelty.
He was put upon his trial. All the influence of family and otherwise tiiat
could reasonably be brought to bear was brought in his favor and able coun-
sel defended him. The jury found him guilty. Strong appeals were made
by strong family influences to the governor to commute the sentence or par-
don him. lie refused and, as your man did in Ahissachu^etts, he atoned for
his offence on the gallows ; he was hanged by the neck until he was dead.
Yes, you execute your criminal laws where one white man kills another. So
do we, and we execute them where a white man kills a negro ; and so we
should. You see, then, that our community is as orderly as yours is, we
execute the laws as promptly and as faithfully as you do, and the ballot-box
is as free.
Thus much in reference to how the colored men got the ballot and as to
the execution of the laws. I am inclined to think, and I may be wrong
there, and I do not wish to judge wrongly, that in giving universal suffrage
under those circumstances possibly you had a little eye to power. There may
have been at least a thought of party power in it, that it was the best way to
republicauize those States, that it was the best way to get control of them
APPENDIX. 651
for the Republican party. I do not say tliat was tlie obj^-ct, for T have no
riglit to judge harshly the motives of others. At least you gave the negroes
the ballot under circumstances that you would not give it to them at home,
and at a time when you did not give it to them at home. I have here another
little sentence from the speech of St nator Anthony that I wish to read in
this connection. Even of the great State of New York, which is so well and
so wisely governed, this is what Senator Anthony says:
"Many of the Northern States adhered to their discrimination against col-
ored citizens till the results of the war compelled its abandonment, and all
the Southern States retained or established it. In New York the proposition
to admit colored citizens to equal rights of suffrage was submitted to a sep-
arate vote, with the constitution of 1846, and was rejected. It was submitted
again, in an .amendment in 18G0, and again in 1868 — " after the passage of
the reconstruction acts, you will please bear in mind— "and was both times
rejected. It was not adopted until 1874, when the fifteenth amendment to
the Federal Constitution had removed the disqualification and established
the equality of the whites and the blacks in the suffrage."
Therefore it was not simply the love of the colored man that prompted the
giving of the suffrage in the Southern States. Even in that great State, as
1 say, they refused absolutely to give the colored man the ballot for years
after it had been given in the South and they were exercising it there.
Again, I incline to think under all the circumstances that you have not dealt
as liberally with these colored people as you n)ight have done. There are
fifty million people in round numbers in the United Stntes. Of that number
the Republican party lacks nearly 160,000 voters of being half, according to
the Political Almanac. So, then, the Republican party represents a popula-
tion of about twenty-four millions in the United States. There are six mill-
ion five hundred and-odd thousand of the colored race, more than one-fourth,
if they are all Republicans, of the entire Republican party of this Union.
How many of the offices have you given them? What have you done for
them? The last administration did give Hon. Frederick Douglass, who is a
man of great intelligence and power, the position of Marsiial of the District
of Columbia; but it the reports be correct, he was not invited to do all the
honors at the White House that have generally been performed by the Mar-
shal of the District of Columbia. And rumor says, I do not know whether
it is true, that now he will have to give way to a white man who can attend
to all those honors and duties. I admit there is some palliation in that, be-
cause it has been reported that the white man is to come from that poor and
neglected State of ()hio that never gets anything. That may be a reason for
the change. What high positions have you given them? Are none of them
intelligent enough to fill them? I see before me now a distinguished gentle-
man, Mr. Bruce, who occupied with dignity, urbanity, and character, a seat
on this floor I believe for six years. You have seven cabinet ministers,
^lore than one-fourth of the whole Republican population of the United
States, if all the colored people are to be counted as Republicans, is colored;
and yet there is no m:m among them who is considered worthy by your party
to represent that fourth in the cabinet of seven. What high positions have
you given them? Occasionally they have had the position of mail route
agent, and occasionally a post-office, but what have you done for them? I
think not a very liberal part.
Allow me to say here that in my opinion the Democracy have learned some
wisdom by experience. I do not adopt the term that I have heard to-day,
" Bourbon " Democrat; I do not know that I am one ; 1 am on a more liberal
line probably than some have been. I stand by the execution of the diflferent
Constitutional amendments, and for carrying out every right of the citizen
652 APPENDIX
in the strictest good faitli ; but T think, as I have already stated, the Demo-
crats have learned wisdom by experience, and you need not be astonished
■when they meet in grand council again as you have neglected to do justice
to these peo|)le that they should do it. There will be no more trouble about
a free ballot and a fair count then. If you will not do riglit by them we will.
That is my opinion ; that is my advanced position. I am a Democrat on that
line.
Will you do it any way ?
My colleague wants to know if you are going to do it any
Mr.
Hoar.
Mr.
Dawes.
wav?
Mr.
Brown,
Mr.
Hoar.
Mr.
Brown
I said I would under any circumstances.
You said you would if we would not.
I will not do it simply for a party purpose. I will advocate
it because I think it is riglit to do justice by them. That is riot quite all.
You have not been very liberal to the Republicans of the South without
regard to race or color. There was once an eminent man. I believe, in this
Ciipitol who said something about the cohesive power of puhlic plunder.
I do not use that phrase, however. But there is a cohesive power about ex-
ecutive patronage that has a good deal to do with keeping a party in power
sometimes. Your party, one hundred and fifty-odd thousand in the minor-
ity of the popular vote in the United States, has almost the entire hundred
thousand Federal appointments, and as you need them North, you do not
send many of them South. You complain that you cannot build up the Repub-
lican party there. No, and as long as you take all the offices for yourselves, and
as long as those that you give down there are given to carpet-baggers
or to those who have no native influence there, you will not build up
one.
I have taken pains to look a little into this question. I do not vouch for
the correctness of the figures that I now use, as I did not make them myself,
but I use them as such an approximation to accuracy as to illustrate properly
the principle I am discussing. I directed one of my secretaries to take up
the OfRcial Register, the latest I had, for 1879. You will remember that
along down in the columns of that you will see the name of the officer, from
what State appointed, and where he was born ; and it is a little remarkable
to see among those given to Georgia how many there are who were not born
there, and how many there are who were never heard of there. I suppose that
is upon the principl(\ however, that, Georgia not having much share in the
spoils, when an applicant came here and a senator or representative found
that the places were full from his State and tiiis office-seeker reported from
Georpia, he was put down there. At least I cannot, on inquiry, locate a
good number of them as havina: ever been known in Georgia. But taking
them all now as Geori^ians and taking my figures as approximately correct,
which I am satisfied they are, you have not been very liberal in bestowing
patronage down there. H you want to rally the people and form a party
there you ought to deal as justly by them as you do by the Republicans else-
where. I respectfully i^tate that I do not think you have done so. As my
secretary has made the list, those employed in the executive department
and in the Secretary of State's office, and I suppose connected with the work
there, number 98, or did at the time the Ofhcial Register was published, and
of the 98 there were 2 charged to Georgia, but neither born there.
Mr. Dawes. One was Fitzsimons.
Mr. Brown. That conies a little lower down. Tn the department of
state there are 307 appointments; from Georgia i. In the war department
1,507; from Georgia 14. In the navy department 347; from (ieorgia 1,
and he was born in Georgia. In the post-office department 483 ; from
APPENDIX. 653
Georgia 9; 6 of them born elsewhere. In the treasury department, not
counting laborers. 10,099 appointees; from Georgia 157; and 81 of them
born elsewhere. I learn that there are about two tlioiisand here in the
treasury department proper, and therefore that is the better rule to apply.
On inquiry I learn that under the statute, if it is construed as we think is
the plain ineaninir of it, Georgia would be entitled to 60 ; and when I in-
quired I found she had 31. In the department of ajjinculture there are 73 ;
from Georg-ia 1, and he was born elsewhere. In the department of the
interior 3,921; from Georgia 7 ; born elsewhere 5; 2 natives. In the de-
partment of ju-tice321; from Georgia 2 ; born elsewhere 2. In the judi-
cial department 2,008; from Georgia 51; born elsewhere 27. I suppose
they locate Fitzsimons there. In the Government printing office 1,136 are
employed; from Georgia 1, and that one born else^vhere. In the govern-
ment of tiie District of Columbia 472; from (Georgia none. My own idea
of it is that if you did not have these hundred thousand officers you would
have a great deal of diffi -ulty in keeping your party together, and certainly
a great deal of difficulty in triumphing with that party.
Mr. Dawes. Your colleague says there are not any Republicans down
there. What could we do ?
Mr. Brown. You have driven them out of the field by yonr injustice to
them. No, gentlemen, you have not done justice to them. If there is any-
thing in your civil-service re'orm there ought to be a competitive examina-
tion and a Democrat let in once in a while. I have insisted on that before
some of the departments, but I find the first inquiry to be^ "Is he a Repub-
lican? " After that is ascertained he might have a chance at a competitive
examination. It does not seem to apply to a colored man ; I notice here, it
is generally a white Republican, and most of those from Northern States,
who gets these benefits. 1 say you should give some of the offices to the
Democrats; but if you will not do that, then, as the Republicans of my
State have no representative on this floor but my colleague and myself, I
demand justice fur them, and that they receive the proportion of the official
patronage tliat Georgia is justly entitled to. If you will not grant this, com-
plain no more of your inability to maintain the Republican party in Geor-
gia.
You gave the colored people the ballot to enhance your power, and you
have not dealt generously by them since they have had the ballot. I appre-
hend at the next election you will scarcely count them soli<i for the Repub-
lican party. I admit that I will be glad to see the day when race lines shall
be no longer drawn, when the people of this country shall divide upon prin-
ciple, upon finance, upon tariifs, upon banks and currency and other such
i^^sues as may come before us; but as long as you attempt in the South to
displace the more intelligent, the more moral and U|iriglit class of people,
tlie property-holders, and put those who are the more idle, the more illiterate,
and the more vicious on top, you will always find a solid South.
I know you build hopes now upon Virginia since the Republican senator
from Virginia [Mr. Mahone] has abandoned the Democracy and become
a Repniblican. You expect that he will carry with him the readjusters of
Virginia. Doubtless many of them will go; but permit me to predict that
there is many an honest old Democrat in the mountains of Virginia who,
when he sejiarated from the regular Democratic party upon the debt-paying
question, did not feel that he had started over into the Kepublican camp,
and when he finds that the senator from A'irginia [Mi'. .Mahone] is leading
him there and has joined the Republicans himself, and that out of from one
to two hundred votes that he has cast in this body he has cast every one
with you and not one with the Democrats, the hard-fisted old Democrat
654 APPENDIX.
there will begin to inquire, "How is this? My leader has abandoned the
principles we started m upon, as I understood them; I did not start into
the Ivepul)lican camp, ;ind I am not cointf there." I understand the policy
and I have a right to comment upon it, because it has been announced here
that you throw this sujiport to the senator from Virginia and his friends
with a view of uniting the elements tiiere that can give the Republican
party tiie power, ai.d it has been further very strongly intimated to us that
this work was to go on into the other Southern States.
In my State we have had divisions among tlie Democrats. In the seventh
and ninth congressional districts, the mountain portion and the stronghold
of the Democracy, a large wing of the Democrat.s revolted against what they
considered corruption or trickery in the party caucuses; independent candi-
dates came out, gentlemen of ability and worth, and led them against the
regular nominees. What was the result? The Republicans fell in with the
independents, as is usual in such a c^i-se, and these gentlemen were elected
and they have served ably and well here. But permit tne to tell you now in
behalf of those independent Democrats at home they did not start into your
camp when they started to follow the independent candidates, and they are
not going there. It has been said that the independent leaders from my
State have I een very kindly received in very high quarters here, and the
support of the Government has probably been tendered to tl em, or at least
intimations of that character given, for them to lead down there and over-
turn the regular Democracy. If that has b< en so, for their benefit you had
better keep it a secret, for when it is known by the Democrats in the muuntains
of Georgia that they are in league with the Republican partyor that there is any
purpose to lead tiiem into it, the Democrats will drop these independent leaders
and they will have no chance for re-election. But I will not do those leaders
the injustice to helieve that these reports are true or that they would at-
tempt to overturn the Democratic party and build up the Republican party.
As long as the independents can lead tlie independent wing of the De-
mocracy and you are willing to tie on as the tail to the kite, they can be
elected as independents; but when the effort is to carry them over into the
Republican ranks or to defeat the Democratic party, they will not go. Now
and then an ambitious man who wants otfice may go; now and then an
aspiring young man may go; but whenever it is understood that your pur-
pose is to reconstruct the South again and to place the lower strata in intelli-
gence of our people above the higiier, in other words, to place the ignorance
and vice — for there is generally more vice among the ignorant — above the
intelligent, the wise, and the property-holders, and when that bugle-note is
sounded down there, you will find that tie young men will not feel flattered
with their associates when they go over into your camp; you will simply
drive our people back to solidity again.
My honorable friend from Connecticut [Mr. Ilawley] turned a fine period
or two on that subject the other day, and I should like to refer to it. He
speaks of a senator who said about the commencement of the last presiden-
tial campaign, " We come to you with 1:38 votes, and we ask you to name
us a man who can bring us 47 more; " and he adds :
"That short paragraph we;it from hamlet to hamlet and from Maine to
California; it was rung nightly, travelling with the curfew bell from Elaine
to California, and its full meaning was comprehended."
" 1 admit that the very fact that the South was spiik»'n of as solid gave the
Republicans a rallying cry for a solid North. Suppose, however, a Republi-
can had gotten up, as I have no dout)t many a one did in the Northern
Sta'es in the campaign, and said. " Here are fourteen States solid for the
Republican party, nobody doubts that they will vote Republican, to wit, Iowa,
APPENDIX. 655
Kansas, Massachusetts, ]\Iichigan. Nebraska, New Hampshire, Ohio, Penn-
sylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wisconsin, Illinois, Colorado, and Maine;
here we present you 149 votes. Name a man who can bring '36 from the
doubtful States, and we can elect him. " That is simply analogous to the
other case.
You have never known a political division yet where there were not certain
States that were solid on each side. Tlie South under the old state of
things was generally Democratic. Who doubted before the war that Massa-
chusetts would vote the Whig ticket under the old division? Who ques-
tioned that Kentucky would go Whig when Henry Clay led it? An intelli-
gent people always know before the campaign is opened that there are
certain States that will be solid on each side, and that the contest is to be
for the doubtful States.
That is what the solid South means. As long as you have a majority of
States North or of States with the help of a tew doubtful States that can
put you in the majority, and you seek to use that majority to overturn our
institutions, and put the ignorance and vice of the South in control over the
intelligence and virtue and property of the South, so long as we believe your
solid Nortli means that, you drive us to be solid ; we cannot disband with
self-respect ; w'e cannot do it with safet}'. Put yourselves in our condition and
would you do it ? You conld not afford to do it. You would not do it in Mas-
sachusetts ; you would do it in no State in this Union. Whenever you are no
longer solid at the North and we hear no more about republicaniziug certain
States,no matter what the means may be, we shall soon cease to be solid. Pre-
sent us issues of the character I mentioned awhile ago,tariff, bank^, etc., and let
those be the only questions, and we will divide as soon as you will, and without
regard to color lines. But it seems to be the policy without any regard to what
will be the consequences to say that you must republicanize those States,
whether they desire to be Republican or not, and to do that j'ou must have
every ignorant colored man vote that you would not permit to vote in your
States; and then if we by kind treatment or any of the appliances that you
use at home vote them, and you do not carry the election, there is a great
complaint over it.
Let me say another thing in connection with the colored men. You made
a mistake, and I apprehend you see it, so fai- as party jiower was concerned
when you gave them the ballot. Taking the census of 1670 and counting
the then ratio of representation, the colored people of the United States
represented thirty-six members in Congress and thirty-six members in the
electoral college. With that stricken out you would have had an easy tri-
umph. Add that to the power of the South and you do not have an easy
one. Count the same vote now ; take the census of 1880. We do not yet
know what the ratio of representation will be, but count it at three hundred
and seven, and then there is within a fraction of forty representatives of
the colored race, nearly all from the South. You made a mistake, which I
apprehend you would not make again if you could recall it, when you gave
us this additional power there; and having made it possibly you have re-
gretted it; but you cannot retrieve it by attempting to force into power the
elements of the character tli<at I have mentioned, which you exclude from
the ballot-box at home over the elements in our State such as control matters
in yours.
1 have already referred to the remarks of the senator from Connecticut
[Mr. Hawley] that the solid South pronounced the fifteenth amendment a
failure. We do not. Colored suffrage is not only established, but with us
it shall remain established. You gave it to us against our will at the time,
at a great risk to society, but we have struggled tiiiough the embarrassment
656 APPENDIX.
and reached a point where the two races are acting harmoniously, kindly,
and in friendship together. You have given us about forty members of
Congress that we would not have had, and about forty members of tlie elec-
toral college that we would not have had, and you can never take thena
from us. It takes three-fourths on a constitutional amendment to get rid
of that, and there is not a Southern State tliat will ever agree to it. We
have foimd that we can work in harmony and in fraternal relations with the
colored race who wei'e raised with and by us. They have I'ouud that we are
their best friends. We intend to work in harmony with them, and we
intend to hold the power that you in an unfortunate moment for your party
gave us, and we will never relinquish it.
A good deal however has been said about a fair count as well as a free
ballot. I do not deny that you count fair in Massachusetts and elsewiiere in
New England. I do deny that you have a free ballot there. I have
commented on Massachusetts. A word in reference to Connecticut. Jf the
Senator from Rhode I>land [Mr. Anthony] makes a true statement in refer-
ence to it, and I quote from l)im in regard to Connecticut, a man twenty-one
yearsof age and upward must be able to read and must be of good moral char-
acter before he can vote. The senator from Ma.ssachu.selts [Mr. Dawes] saya
that does not exclude anybody. I do not know; I believe tlie Connecticut
people are very good people. I spent some time with them in my college
days ; I was treated kindly by them ; I have no unkind expression to use in
reference to them, but I presume it is a misfortune of every community, no
matter how steady may be the habits of the land, to have some immoral
people. I have apj'lied at the Census Office. I could not get the illiteracy
o^Connecticut or of Ma>sachusetts in the case of persons over twenty-one
years of age, for it is not yet read}', as the Superintendent tells me, but 1
take it for granted that there is a considerable number of men in Connecticut
who cannot read, and there are at least a few immoral men there. The}' are
excluded by the laws of Connecticut from the ballot. Therefore tliere is not
a free ballot; in otlier words, there is not universal suffrage in Connecticut;
there is not manhood suffrage there. In Rhode Island the same is true, as
is admitted by all. There is a property qualification there lor naturalized,
citizens. The senator from Rhode Island [.Mr. Anthony] stated that there
are two thousand excluded from the polls there. Then it is not a free ballot
when even two thousand citizens are driven away from the polls; it is not a
free baUot when a hnndred thousand, if that be the number in Massa-
chusetts, are diiven away from the polls, or eighteen thousand if that be the
number.
In reference to that good old Granite State of Xew Hampshire the senator
from Rhode Island [Mr. Anthony] says that both paities resisted the repeal
of the Catholic test there until 1877. No miin there until tiat time could
hold the office of governor of the State or member of the Legislature unless
he professed tlie Protestant religion. In other words, a Catholic, no matter
hosv intelligent he might be, could not hold either of those high offices be-
cause of his religious tuith. We have nothing of that in tie South. There-
fore, I say we have a freer ballot there than you have in New Englanii, and
we have as fair a count there as you have. Though there may have been
some trouble about a fair count at an earlier period for the reasons tliat I
have mentioned, it is not so now.
The honorable .senator from Pennsylvania [Mr. Cameron] said the other
day in his speech :
" For all true men who uphold the laws, the Republican party has confi-
dence, respect, and co-operation."
Again he says :
APPENDIX. 657
" We have no prejudices on account of old conflicts. Whoever is right at
the present time is our friend, and we are liis."
I say that is a noble sentiment. He does not go back then to the period
when there may have been any difficulty about a free ballot or any difficulty
about a fair count. He inquires what is it now, and he has to do that to
maintain his position in reference to the Republican senator from Virginia.
We meet him there, and we have a right to claim his confidence aud respect.
I claim it for the Democracy of Georgia, because we stand right on that
phitform to-day ; I claim it fur myself, aud I claiui the patronage of the Gov-
ernment for my State on tliat line.
But the honorable senator from Connecticut [Mr. Hawley] u«ed another
expiession that might possibly exclude me from these benefits. He used this
language :
" When he," — speaking of a Southern senator — " takes his seat on this side
and tells you that he does not care for your caucus, that what you do in there
is a matter of total indifference to him, I shake hands witli him, Mahone or
anybody else; and the more of them the more welcome."
The reason why I cannot claim this good promise, then, of the senator
from Pennsylvania is that, while I stand for a free ballot and a fair count
and a faithful execution of the reconstruction measures and the constitutional
amendments, and will fight with j'ou there to the end of the chapter, I (iid
not comply with the other prerequisite — I did not take my seat ou that side.
Gentlemen, I was not elected to go on that side; I deceived nobody in my
campaign ; I took the advanced position on the night before my election, as
my colleague has told you ; 1 laid down in the broadest terms that I would
stand for a free ballot and a fair count, that I would stand for doing justice
to the colored race, that 1 would recommend some of them for office, and that
I was for the faithful execution of the thirteenth, fourteenth and titteeuth
amendments. I am entitled, then, to the promise ot the senator from Penn-
sylvania if I had not come under the exclusion of the senator fr(jm Con-
necticut, whose requisition is that the senator shall take his seat on that
side.
But you have not always had a fair count, I think ; at least, if you have,
the majority has not ruled under that count. In 1876 Mr. Tilden carried a
popular vote of over a quarter of a million, and if I know anything 1 know
that he honestly carried the State of Florida, for I was there and saw what
was done, and he was elected fairly, but he did not get counti-d in. I insist
that it was not a fair count, and the Democrats, a majority of them, did not
make it either. No, gentlemen, at your door lies the charge that you do not
in your own States maintain a free ballot, and you have not in your prac-
tices maintained a fair count.
A word in reference to the strange state of things in Virginia. You have
seized, and as a party measuie I have nothing to say about it, what you con-
sider the readj aster element there, and you are seeking to blend it with the
Republican element and carry that State. I am not going to discn-s the re-
pudiation question there at all. 1 believe all admit that there is a difference
between the funders and readj usters, as they are called, as to ■'$12,000,000
of the debt; but I simply want to say this, that you may drive the people of
Virginia into what you may call an error that they do not want to commit, and
that you would not want to see them commit. You seek to take advantage of
the division on the debt question to carry one portion of the Democracy into
the Republican camp. The Democracy ot Virginia proper, the property-
1 olders, the educated people, the church going people, a large majority of
them — for there are some on all sides 1 admit, and 1 do not make any attack
on anybody — but what you usually call the intelligent or ruling class of people
42
658 APPENDIX.
as you would say in the otlier States, have stood manfully up for maintain-
ing the credit of tlie old State ; but they will inider.--tand you now, whether
correctly or not, as tendering tliis issue to tiieni : You say, " We intend to
take hold of this readjust* r element and put the negroes and readjnsttrs and
the lew white llepuMicans who are there in power." They may reacli the
point where tlie supremacy ot intelliuence, education, virtue and property for
the preservation of society may become more important to the Democracy of
Virginia than the pavment of her debt to your Northern capitidists ; and
they may find it necessary to drop their internal strifes, and, if you will have
it so, turn overboard this §12,000,000 of the public debt, and, if necessary to
their reunion and the preservation of thtir society, tumble $12,00l>.000 more
over with it, or let the whole of it go rather than have ruin brought upon
the State by putting her under the control of a clafs of people, a large major-
ity of whom aie fcuch as you will not admit to the ballot-box in your own
States. .
I do not know what the proud people of that grand and glorious old Com-
mon wealih will do, that old moiher of States and statesmen ; I venerate her
name and I glory in her history, for my ancestry on both sides lived upon
her soil ; but 1 can see that you may drive the virtue and intelligence of
that State to the point tiiat they will tumble the wiiole debt overboard, if
necessary, rather than submit to the ruin of society that you purpose to fasten
upon tliem ; and when they do it, you cannot reasonably condemn them.
They have been able thus far lo tight successfully the readjusters; they may
not be able to fight successfully the readjusters with the i)atronage of the
Senate of the United States and the patronage of the Federal Government.
in other words, they may not be able to fight the readjusters and the Federal
(loverninent ; when they find they are not, 1 presume they will take care of
their institutions by letting the debt go if it be necessary. Will you condemn
them when they do it? Will you cry "repudiation " it you drive them to
repudiate to protect their society?
1 have already said that the independent Democrats of the South will not
dare unite with you, their leaders 1 mean will not dare do it, for their fol-
lowers, or the mass of them, who are Democrats, will not go with them and
will not support them. And now let me say a few words more in conclusion,
for I have another single point.
At the end of tiie war, as I have already stated, we were a conquered peo-
ple ; we had to submit to the terms dictated by the conqueror; and we had
to take whatever you put upon us; and it was very hard. We have atoned for
our treason, as you term it, and we have been admitted back to these halls
by Senators and Kepre-entatives, and we have come to stay here and you
cannot reconstruct us again. The condition is very different from what it was
then. Now prosperity has been restored to the country. Your Northern
capitalists did not have money investments there in that day; they have
poured in there recently by the millions their money. We open a broad
field for investment ; we have unbounded resources ; we have a climate not
surpassed on the face of the earth; our cotton crop alone this year, if it
reaches G,000,0U0 bales, as we suppose it wdl, will pour into the South .^;}00,-
000,000 ill gold; our mineral wealth is not probably surpassed anywhere on
the globe— 1 do not speak so much of the precious metals as I do of the
coal ami the iron and the ndnerals that make a peo])le great — our commer-
cial importance is every day increasing; our cities are growing ; our rail-
roads have become organized, they are penetrating every portion of our
country.
Your Northern capital is coming down there and being invested, and what-
ever may have been our errors iu the past upon that subject we welcome
APPENDIX. 659
you now; come among us; we extend to you a cordial greeting; we invite
you to our liouses, to our parties, to our bosoms, wliere you come intending
to make good citizens, and we share with you this splendid domain that is
not anywhere surpassed on the face of the globe. The capacities for the
productions of the South in future are limitlesfs. Would you believe it,
that, according to the last census, the whole acreage of the cotton crop in the
Soutii lor the past year is a little over half and less than two-thirds of the
acreage of the State of Georgia? In other words, you might transfer every
acre of cotton last year, if you could put it all together, to my own State,
and it would cover a little more than one-half her territory. The capacity,
then, for the production of this great staple is simply boundless. Why, take
Texas alone, an empire of territory, larger than France, larger than the Em-
pire of Germany, larger than the Empire of Austro-Hungary. We have
merely skimmed the surface, Texas alone can produce more cotton than
the world will need tbe next fifty years, and as the necessities increase,
the production can be expanded indefinitely. Not only that, we are waking
up a strong rivalry with you in manufacturing there. The number of pounds
of cotton manufactured in the Southern States from 187U to 1880 more than
doubled itself. We are constantly putting up new mills and new machinery,
and we are going to manufacture large quantities of it, and your Korthern
capital finds it its interest to come there, and we invite you.
Now permit me to tell you frankly tliat this is not 1867 and 1868, and
when you make this issue of radicalizing those States by overturning their
great interests, you will not find your Northern capital flow so freeiy into
your political coffers to carry your elections. They will say to you, " Nay,
you must stop this ; you cannot disorganize society there ; you cannot ruin
the interests of that country without ruining our capital ; " and they will
not go with you ; and let me warn you now that if you are not careful you
will lose a great many more votes from the Republican party in the next
election in the Northern States than you will carry of Democrats in the
Southern States. The war is over ; you buried "the bloody shirt" when
you made the Republican Senator from Virginia your leader, he being a Con-
federate brigadier, and with that set before the people of the United States
they will not enter with you again into another crnsade to establish a power
in the South that you failed to do when jou gave suffrage to the negroes.
You will have to recognize our prosperity ; we have a better country than
you have, and though the blight of slavery may have been upon it according
to your estimate ; though it was our misfortune, which is removed, it will
blight there no more ; we intend to go forward and develop and grow up;
we intend to try to become your equals in wealth, in intelligence, and then
you will respect us.
I have thanked you before and I thank you again for the efforts you have
made, the liberality you have siiown from New England in coming up and
agreeing with us to do your part toward the education of a class that, by the
act of war, was turned loose u[)on us and carried to the polls when they were
not able to take care of themselves. I say you did well there ; we welcomed
you. I have given you credit where I thouglit you deserved it, and I think
you do in that regard ; but you will find it is a great mistake if you think
the Democrats in the South who have followed the independents are going
to follow them to your camp ; and I think you will find yourselves mis-
taken in the North when you undertake lo upheave our society again and
subvert it for purposes of political power, I do not believe your people, and
especially the large numbers of them who have investments in our section,
will sustain you in it.
G60 APPENDIX.
Speech gf IIox. Joseph E. Brown, of Georgia, Delivered in the
Senate ok the United States, January 18, 1882, on the Fol-
lowing Resolution offered by him :
Rpsnlved, That it is inexpedient and unwise to contract the currency by the with-
drawal from circulation of what are known as silver certiticates, or to discontinue or
further restrict the coinage of silver.
Resolved farther. That gold and silver coin, based upon a proper ratio of equiva-
lence between the two metals, and issues of paper, predicated upon and convertible into
coin on demand, constitute the proper circulatiuj; mediiun of this country.
Mr. Brown said :
!Mr. President: In the formation of society it was found that no one man
could make for himself all the necessaries and conveniences of life. Jt
was also discovered that by devoting his attention to a particular pursuit he
soon became more proficient in that, and was able to do more for tlie in-
terests of society by availing himself of the skill lie had acquired in the ]iro-
duction of a single article. The wants of men engaging in ditferent pursuits
Boon suggested the necessity of bartering the articles produced by one for
those produced by others. The farmer made his own bread and other pro-
visions, but he needed the aid of the mechanic in building his house. For a
covering for liis head he looked to the hatter. Tije- hatter needed the pro-
visions made by the farmer, and they naturally proposed an exchange. The
carpenter also needed provisions, and he was willing to exchange the pro-
ductions of his labor for the products of the farmer's labor.
But in this state of tilings it was soon found that the quantity of provis-
ions needed by the hatter was not always a just equivalent for the hat he
manufactured for the farmer, and the house needed by the farmer was
probably more than an equivalent for the provisions needed by the carpenter.
The idea then suggested itself that all should agree upon some article or
thing which should represent values, and that it should be made the standard
by which the value of the productions of eacii should be determined. Just
as a yard-slick was agreed on as a proper instiunient for measuring cloth,
when the length of the stick was determined it was easy by ajiplying it to
the bolt of cloth to ascertain how many yards the bolt contained; or when
tlie bushel measure was agreed upon by all, it was easy, by the proper use of
this measure, to determine how much wheat or how much corn was in the
farmer's crop, or in the portion of it offered by him for sale. So when the
standard of values was agreed upon by all, it w^iis soon found to be no dif-
ficult task to determine, judged liy thut standaid, liovv much of tiie farmer's
provisions the carpenter should have for the house built by him, and how
many hats the farmer should receive for the provisions supplied to the
hatter.
The next difficulty, however, was to agree upon this common commodity
which should represent values and become the medium of exchanges. Jn
the earlier periods, among the less enlightened nations, and even at this day
among savage tribes, certain shells of the ocean of a particular character
were made the representatives of values, or the medium of exchange. In
certain cases copper was agreed on as a proper medium. But jifter a
thorough consideration some thousands of years ago, the more advanced and
civilized nations of the earth agreed upon two niftals usually known as the
precious metals as the proper material out of which should be made the arti-
cles to re|»resent values and be used as money. Those metals weie jiold and
silver. They were well adapted to the use intended, as they are easily
moulded into the proper shape and upon them can be indelibly impressed the
stamp of the government authority, which gives to each a specific value as
APPENDIX. 661
compared with other articles of commerce by which we test the vahie of
such articles. Again, these metals seem to have been intended by the
Creator for the uses to which they have been applied, as they are found in
larger or smaller quantities in every grand division of the globe, and they
are nowhere found in such quantities as to exceed the legitimate demands
of the world for a proper circulating medium. Divest them of their value as
a circulating medium, or as a standard of the values of other articles, and
they would be less useful to mankind and less valuable than iron, which is
used in making the tools and implements of every trade and calling, in the
construction of our railroads, the supply of the immense motive power used
by land and water, the building of our houses, the construction of our ships
at sea, and the clothing of our men of war upon the ocean. In point of in-
trinsic value to mankind there would be no comparison between iron on the
one hand and gold and silver on the other, were it not that the two last men-
tioned metals have for thousands of years been used by common consent as
a medium of exchange. The value of gold or silver is not, therefore, found
in its intrinsic worth, but it is found in the laws of the different nations and
the laws of tiade; and it is worth more or less as the nations stamp their
signets of value ujion it fur a larger or smaller amount.
As stated by an able French writer, M. de Laveleye, the value of the
money metals is controlled by the continued and obligatory absorption of
them at the mints at the rates fixed by law. If the employment of them for
coinage should cease, the value of the metal would fall to a half, or a third,
or further still. The slate creates the greater part of the vidue, both of
gold and of silver, for it creates a sure market for them. It is admitted that
in the case of monopoly it is the demand which chiefly determines price.
Now the demand which rules the market of the precious metals is that which
acts at the mint. Minister Gaudin said, in the year 1803, the market value
of the precious metals is the mint price. The state, therefore, which creates
the demand can fix the price.
The same writer, speaking of the success of France in maintaining the
ratio of equivalence establislied between the two metals for so long a period,
says :
" Experience has demonstrated that a single country, provided it has ex-
tended territory and a large stock of coin, can in practice maintain the ratio
of equivalence between silver and gold which its law has established."
And in the international conference of 1881, Lord Reay, representing
British India, used this expression :
" The surplus in the French budjiets and the brilliant conversion of a por-
tion of their debt just effected by the United States establish in a most re-
markable manner that their marvellous financial condition is strong enough
to permit of their making the experiment of bimetallism."
Lord Reay aho Jidmits that while gold has been adopted as the standard
in Great Britain, British India adheres to silver monometallism. More than
three-fourths of the whole population of the nations of the earth use silver,
or silver and gold as the standard; and in Great Britain and Germany,
where silver is demonetized, it cannot be kept out of circulation, but still re-
tains practically almost its original power as money. The French Govern-
ment in 18ii3. in fixing the ratio of equivalence between the two metals at
1 in gold to 15 1-2 in silver, was merely acting, as a distinguished writer
says, in conformity with historical precedents, and was not violating economic
laws.
In the monetary conference in 1878 M. Say was able to affirm that, during
sixty six years the French system had stood steadfast under circumstances
the most extraordinary — wars, invasions, revolutions, crises of every kind,
662 APPENDIX.
and even under the delujre of gold after 1850, which it was believed would
bring about its ruin. The French law upon this subject could not have been
far wrong in e-tablishing the relative value of the two metals. If it had
been, France as a great comniercial nation, surrounded by great commercial
powers, could not for sixty-six years have maintained tliis difference under
the trying circumstances in which she was placed without suffering great in-
convenience growing out of the want of proper equilibrium.
But there came a time when the English Government, whose colonies, I
believe, produce a greater proportion of gold than of silver, discarded as a
medium of exchange the silver which for centuries, by the common consent
of the civilized world, had been used for that purpose. Germany, another
great P^uropean power, at a later period was induced to follow the lead of
Great Britain in the demonetization of silver. Other small powers followed,
and the Congress of the United States, on the 13th of February, 1873, passed
a statute which authorized the coinage of the trade-dollar of 420 grains of
standard silver, and not the old dollar of our fathers of 412 1-2 grains. The
act also provided for other smaller silver coins, and declared that said coins
should be a legal tender in payment of any debt not exceeding $5, in any
one payment. And the codifiers of our laws, at a later period, gave this
statute a broader latitude by declaring in the code that the silver coins of
the United States shall be a legal tender at their nominal value for any
amount not exceeding $5 in any one payment.
This embraced not only the trade-dollar of 420 grains authorized by the
act of 1873 and the smaller coins, but it also embraced the old dolhiv of
412 1-2 grains, which had from an early period in the Government been a
legal tender. Thus did we follow Great Britain and Germany in tlie de-
monetization of silver. But it is believed that very few members of either
House of Congress understood the scope and intent of the act of 1873, and
the people generally felt that they had been outraged when the act was made
public and its provisions understood. And their indignation was the greater
when they learned that the code had been made broad enough to cover all
silver coins of all the denominations coined in the United States, no matter
at what period they may have been issued from the mint.
We were then told by the representatives of the money power of the
country that it had become necessary to demonetize silver, as the quantity
was becoming so great as to destroy the proper equilibrium between it and
gold, and to render it ununited as a medium of exchange. And to sustain
this theory it was affirmed that the same quantity of silver which had pre-
viously bten used in coining the legal-tender silver dollar, and which is now
used, was as a legal tender more than the equivalent in value of the same
numiber of grains of silver. In other words, that the silver out of which the
Government of the United States had coined a silver dollar, stamped with
the authority of the Government as a legal tender, was not worth a legal
dollar — that this result had been produced by the overproduction of silver.
Now, I deny the correctness of this position, and shall attempt to show
that the argument was founded in a faliacj'. As already stated, the com-
mercial value given to either gold or silver is not its intrinsic value as a
metal, but the value at wliich the Government estimates it as a medium of
exchange, the value which, by its authority, the Government stamps upon it
a^ money. Now, why was it at that time, and why is it now, that 412^
grains of the standard silver would not and will not in the maiket bring a
legal dollar? I maintaiti that it is not on account of overproduction of silver
or of the fact that the old ratio between silver and gold has been destroyed,
but that it grew out of the fact that the British Government and the Ger-
man Government had demonetized silver as a legal circulating medium.
APPENDIX. 663
This very naturally reduced in the market the value of silver as a metal.
The value is reduced as compared with gold, not because the equilibrium
upon the old ratio has been, in fact, destroyed by the overproduction of sil-
ver, but because the great powers mentioned retained gold as a medium of
exchange, giving it as a metal the fictitious value which it has on account of
its being stamped by authority of tlie Government as money, while that
fictitious value was withdrawn from silver, and it was left, so far as its legal
status was concerned, to stand upon its natural value as a commodity, or as
otlier metals stand. And but for the fact that the larger portion of the
world continued to use it as money it would have depreciated to a much
greater extent. There had, therefore, on account of the action of the two
great powers above mentioned, been a reduction of the value of silver in the
market. When tlie United States demonetized it this produced a still
greater reduction in its value. With all this injustice done to silver as a
circulating medium, it maintained a high standard of value, much above
what could have been expected in the face of the unfriendly legislation of
the great powers above mentioned.
Now let us reverse the picture for a moment. Suppose at the time Great
Britain demonetized silver, that Government had retained silver as money,
or as a circulating medium, and had demonetized gold ; and Germany had
followed suit; and the United States had then in turn reduced its power as
a legal tender to debts not exceeding five dollars, who can doubt that with
this injustice done gold it would have ftdlen as much below silver in the
market, relatively, as silver under the like unfriendly legislation has fallen
below gold?
But 1 may be told that the act of Congress of February 28, 1878, remone-
tized silver, and authorized the secretary of the treasury to have coined
silver dollars of 412^ grains of standard silver, which were again declared
to be a legal tender, and that notwithstanding this remonetization of silver,
the silver bullion still sells in the market for a lower price than tlie same
quantity of silver brings when coined into a legal-tender dollar. This may
be true, but the cause that has produced the decline in the silver lias not yet
been removed; otherwise it would not be true. The Government only per-
mits the Coinage of from two to four millions of silver dollars each month ;
in practice, about two million. Let the Congress of the United States pass
an act making it the duty of our mints to coin all the silver that is produced
in this country into legal tender, with full dehl-paying and purchaxinfi capncitif,
and you will see and hear in the United States no more of the destruction of
the equilibrium as heretofore established between gold and silver. Of
course, silver has not been able to staml this unfriendly legislation without
depreciation, and gold certainly could have stood it no better if the assault
had been made upon that metal.
But the important question after all probably is, what shall be the ratio of
equivalence? It is of course very desirable that all tiie commercial nations
should unite in fixing a standard, and it is believed that the French standard
is about the true one. And France would be ready to stand with the United
States upon that ratio.
Notwithstanding the fact that botli Germany and Great Britain decline to
unite on both gold and silver as a circulating medium, there is no insurniount'
able difficulty in maintaining both metals as legal money by the other com-
mercial nations. This fact was recognized by the representatives of the
different powers, who advocated both gold and silver as money in the confer-
ence of 1881, when the draught of a resolution for an international treaty
was presented by a distinguished French repre-entative, ]\I. Cernuschi. It is
proposed that the members of the union shall admit gold and silver to mint-
664 APPENDIX.
age without any limitation of quantity, and shall adopt the ratio of 1 to
15^ between the weight of pure metal contained in tlie monetary unit in
gold and the weiglit of pure metal cont lined in the same unit in silver.
The position tVequentiy taken that thi-re is so much silver now produced
as to make it unsafe to aihnit its universal coinage as a medium of exchange
unless all the commercial powers unite can neither be maintained in sound
theoi'y nor in practice. Of course such union is very desirable. It has been
well remarked that every new accession of gold or silver in fostering trade
opens a new field of employment for itself, and prevents its own depreciation.
I am aware that it was predicted when we rcmonetized silver in the United
States and autiiorized the coinajre of from two to four millions of dollars per
month of that metal that the silver coin would become so plentiful as com-
pared with gold that other nations would import their silver to the United
States for sale, and that we would have to pay balances abroad in gold ; that
our gold, the more valuable article, would be purchased by silver, the less
valuable article, from other countries, and exported from this country, leav-
ing the United States with a local silver circulation, while Great Britain and
Germany maintained monometallism in gold, which would soon compel otlier
great commercial countries to follow suit.
It was said that silver was so plentiful that 1 ounce of standard gold was
worih more than 16 ounces of standard silver; or that 4r2i grains of
standard silver contained in the legal-tender silver dollar was not worth as
much as the gold dollar of 25.8 grains; that the ratio of 1 in gold to 10 in
silver was not right, but that it siiould be 1 in gold to 17 or 18 in silver.
In other words, we should put .more standard silver in a legal-tender silver
dollar than it now contains; and, to give emphasis to this theory, banks have
thrown out the trnde-dollar of 420 grains (which, compared with the coins
of the world, is intrinsically worth more than a dollar in gold), and will only
receive it at a heavy discount. This is done with the view, no doubt, of
depreciating silver in the market and of deterring the Congress and the peo-
ple of the United States from giving it its proper position as a circulating
medium.
The secretary of the treasury in Lis last annual report has thought proper
to throw the weight of his position against silver coin in the following lan-
guage : _
" A continuance of the monthly addition to our silver coinage will soon
leave us no choice but that of exclusive silver coinage, and tend to reduce us
to a place in the commercial world among the minor and less civilized
nations. It may be assumed that a people as enterprising and progressive
as that of the United States, holding a leading postion among tiie nations,
will not consent to a total abandonment of the use of gold as one of the
raetals to be etnployed as money ; and we cannot consent to be placed in tlie
awkward position of paying for all that we buy abroad upon a gold standard
and selling all that we have to sell u[)on a silver standard. It is therefore
recommended that the provision for the coinage of a fixed amount each
month be repealed, and the secretary be authorized to coin only so much as
will be necessary to supply the demand."
Again he says :
" It is believed that the amount in circulation will be steadily increased,
but not so fast as to require for some months or perhaps years any addition
to the amount already coined."
Here the honorable secretary in effect reiterates the warning given us in
1876 when we remouetized silver, that we must stop the coinage of silver or
the gold would all flow from our borders and the silver come to our country
and take its place, and that we should be reduced to a place in the commer-
APPENDIX. 665
cial world among the minor or less civilized nations. Now, what pretext is
there in fact or in practice to sustain this assumption on the part of the secre-
tary of the treasury ? Absolutely none. The practical results have been a
sufiicient contradiction of this theory, and that should put such assumptions
at rest in future. We have adopted a ratio of equivalence which puts more
silver or less gold in a dollar than the usual standards of the world, ours
beiuij 16 to 1, while most commercial nations ado]>t 15 1-2 to 1, and Germany
in all slie now coins, 14. AViiile this state of things last-s the practical work-
ings of the system will continue to be tlie sufficient refutation of the position
of the honorable secretary. Instead of a flow of gold from the United States
and a flow of silver to this country, the very reverse will be true.
Why shonld the people of this vast continent, including the United States,
Mexico, and all the South American States, who use both gold and silver as
legal currency, and a large majority ot the people of Europe, who also use the
double standard, and the immense nnmber of the population of Asia, who use
a silver currency, be unable to maintain silver in tlie position it has occupied
for thousands of years as money or as a legal circniating medium ?
Certainly the United States and ilexico (which taken together produce
alnio-t half of the precious metals) should not be among the first to consent
to the depreciation of either of these metals.
In a late work entitled The Silver Country, or the Great Southwest, by
Alexander D. Anderson, I find the following statement as to the production
of the precious metals. Jn referring to the country known as New Spain,
wliich embraces Mexico and that portion of the present territory of the
United States which formerly belonged to Spain, he says :
" We have seen in comparing its precious metals with those of the world
for the same periods that the Southwest from 15'J1 to 1876 produced over one-
third of the combined products of silver and ixold of the whole world ; that
its silver product was from 1521 to 18()4 a trifle less than half of that of the
world ; from 1804 to 1848 over half of that of the world; from 1818 to 1868
half of that of the world ; from 1868 to 1876 but a trifle less than two-tliirds
of that of tlie world; and for 1875, the last year of the whole period, three-
fourths of that of the world."
If, then, at the present time, or during the year 1875, Mexico and the
United States produced three-fourths of all the silver of the world and
nearly half of its gold, it seems to me it cannot be seriously contended that
wise statesmanship would prompt either Government to give the advantage to
(ireat Britain and Germany or to any other power by yielding for silver the
true position which it is entitled to occupy as a medium of exchange in the
commercial transactions of the world.
When we produce more gold than any other power on earth, and when we
fix the ratio between the two metals higher than the other leading commer-
cial powers fix it, how is the secretary to maintain his asserticm that —
'* A maintenance of the monthly addition to our silver coinage will soon
leave us no choice but that of an exclusive silver coinage, and tend to reduce
us to a place in the commercial world among the minor or less civilized
nations."
While I do not impugn motives I must say this assertion is sustained
neither by the facts, by sound theory, nor by practical experience.
Let us contrast this opniion of the secretary with that of other distin-
guished financiers in other countries.
In the late monetary conference, of 1881, Mr. Cernuschi, a distinguished
delegate from France, says :
"If, however, we were doomed to monometallism, if it were necessary to
choose one of the two metals, the choice could not be doubtful. Silver would
6G6 APPENDJX.
have to be chosen. The existino; mass of gold is too small ; gold is too diffi-
cult to_ subdivide ever to become uuiversal money."
Again he says :
" If itis real and sincere bimetallism which must be attained, it is practi-
cable with four states, with three, or even with two. Yes, the bimetnllic
union would be supreme in the world even if composed only of the United
States and France."
Now let us quote from a distinguished advocate of tlie gold standard in
the late conference, and see whether he agrees with the secretary.
Mr. Broach, the delegate from Norway, a country that lia.; adopted gold
monometallism, made the following important statement during the discus-
sion :
''In short, universal bimetallism is not possible, for in Asia. India and
China are silver monometallic, and in i:urope two of the chief povvt-rs are
resolved on remaining gold monometallic."
Atrain, he says :
" The United States might put up with the system, because, in the capacity
of large exporters of merchandise payable in bills on London, they are sure
of always keeping hirge quantities of 'gold. They could do so. also, because
they would not be exfio^ed to seeing silver flow to them. They are too great
producers of silver for Europe to send them that metal, which"" they furnish,
on the contrary, to Europe. The time is approaching, moreover, when the
United States, sufficiently provided with coin, will no longer have to ask
Europe for it, and when in payment of tlieir consignments of breadstuffs and
raw materials to the old continent they will have^to demand in exchange a
greater and greater quantity of manufactured articles, or of European securi-
ties. But on either hypothesis they will be no resource for Europe for
the sale of its depreciated silver,"
Here is the opinion of a distinguished representative of Norway, a mono-
metallic gold state, sustaining that of M. Cernuschi, and Lord Reav, repre-
senting British India (already quoted), that tlie United States in a union with
France alone can suffer no serious detriment by adt)pting and practicing
bimetallism. Then these distinguished financiers, one representing mono-
metallism in silver, one representing monometallism in gold, and one
birrietallism, all differ with the honorable secretary of the treasury as to the
ability of the United States to maintain without serious difficulty the
bimetallic standard of both gold and silver.
Not only do these distinguished representatives of the three different sy.«;-
tems of metallic currency discard the theory of the secretary of the treasury,
but, what is still more important and conclusive, in practice tlie facts are in
the very teeth of his theory, and show its unsoundness beyond controversy.
What are the practical facts ?
I quote from the quarterly report of the chief of the bureau of statistics of
the treasury department of the United States for the three months ending
June 80, 1881, widch also contains other statistics relative to the trade and
industries of the United States. Amonor those other stati.stics, I find on page
444 that there were imported into the United States gold and s.lver coin and
bullion during the year ending June 30. 1881, a total of $110,575,407. Of
this amount there was $100,0:31,259 in gold, and $10,544,238 in silver, mak-
ing the importation of gold duringthe last fiscal year wiihin a fraction of $10
for every $1 of silver iuifunted. Now, let us look a nioment at the ex[)orts.
Durinfj the same period there were exported from the United States in gold,
coin, bar.s ami bullion, forei>:n and domestic, a total of $2,565,132 ; and of
silver $10,811,715 were exported. Thus we see in its practical working: that
there was in one year nearly ten times as much gold as silver imported, and
APPENDIX. 667
nearly seven times as much silver as gold exported, after nearly $100,000,000
in silver had been coined under the act of 1878.
Possihly it may be said the year 1881 was an exception to tlie common
rule. Then let us see how the matter stood the previous year, endincr June
the 30th, 1880. The total importation of gold that vear amounted to
$80,758,396. The total importation of silver was $12,275,914, showing that
we imported over six and a half times as much sold as silver.
How did the export-* stand the same year ? The domestic and foreign ex-
ports of gold amounted to $3,639,025, and the exports of silver, domestic and
foreign, amounted to $12,834,904. That is, we exported over three and a
half times as much silver as gold, and we imported over six and a half times
as much gold as silver during the year ending June 30, 1880. And during
the year ending June 30, 1881, the importation of gold, as already stated,
amounted to nearly ten times as much as the importation of silver, and the
exportation of silver to about seven times as much as the exportation of gold.
Thi'^ shows that under our pre>ent system of coinage the drain of gold to the
United States, and the drain of silver from the United States increase
largely from year to year. And if this state of things continues for a few
years longeron the same basis, and in the same proportions as in the last two
years, we shall have, in the teeth of the theory of the secretary of the treasury,
an almost exclusively gold currency, while foreign powers will have nearly all
our silver. And the reason already given is obvious. We estimate 1 ounce
of gold as the equivalent of 16 ounces of silver, while the Latin Union and
other foreign nations estimate 1 ounce of gold as being worth only 15^ ounces
of silver. Hence the drain of gold to our country, where the highest esti-
mate is put upon it, and the drain of silver to other countries, where it is
estimated higher than it is in the United States. The theory of the secretary
looks well upon paper, but it cannot for a moment stand in the light of the
facts, nor biar the test of experience, nor endure the ordeal of practice.
The fact that the ratio in France and most other bimetallic nations is 15^
to 1 while ours is 16 to 1, shows that we have discriminated against silver,
putting more silver or less gold in the dollar than the just ratio. And this
is demonstrated in practice, as the flow of gold is 10 for 1 to the United
States and the flow of silver nearly 7 for 1 from the United States. Then,
those who maintain that the silver dollar as compared with the gold dollar
does not contain enough grains of silver are really in error, as is clearly
sliown in practice, which is the best test of the correctness of a theory. One
practical fact is worth half a dozen theories that will not work in practice.
If, then, we would do full justice to our great silver-mining interests in this
country, and would place silver and gold on the proper ratio existing in most
parts of the world, we should put more gold into the standard gold dollar
than we now do if we maintain the standard silver dollar at 412^ grains. I
repeat, it is not true in practice, and the theory that asserts it is therefore
erroneous, that 4121 grains of standard silver in this country is intrinsically
worth less than the legal-tender gold dollar. We have not fixed the ratio
as to silver too low, but if we have erred at all we have fixed it too high, and
if the trade-dollar of 420 grains of standard silver, or '120 grains of standard
silver in any other shape, will sell in our market for less than a legal-tender
dollar, it grows out of the fact that we have by legislation discriminated
against silver and in favor of gold, and thereby depreciated the price in the
market. A test which, under like unfavorable legislation, gold could endure
no better than silver has.
Neither the people of the United States nor the other great powers of
Europe look at present with favor upon the action of Great Britain and
Germany in demonetizing silver; and if the Government of the United
6G8 APPENDIX.
States will stand firmly upon the old rule, and. as the heaviest producer of
both the precious metals, give to each, to the extent of our power, its proper
position in the currency of the world, it will not, with the aid of the otlier
bimetallic power^j, be many years before tlie contest will be ended and silver
coin will again occupy its proper position, not only in the United States, but
in every country in Europe, as it now does in every country elsewhere; and
the proper ratio of relative value will still be found to be from 15 to 10 of
silver for 1 of gold.
The President pro tempore. Is it the pleasure of the senate that ihe
moruing hour shall be extended until the senator from Georgia concludes
his remarks?
Mr. Allison. I move that it be extended.
The Pre>ident pro tempore. The Chair hears no objection, and the morn-
ing hour will be so extended.
Mr. Brown. Not only do the other leading nations of Europe deprecate
the course taken by Great Britain and Germany in the demonetization of
silver, but the German Empire is itself sensible of the danger attending its
general demonetization. In the monetary conference of 1881. the chief
repre.sentative of the German Empire, Barnn von Thielmann, refers to this
question in terms of no doubtful import. He says:
" We recognize, without reserve, that the rehabilitation of silver is to be
desired, and that it may be attained by the re-establishment of free coinage
of silver in a certain number of the most populous States represented in this
conference, if these States, to this end, should adopt as a basis a fixed rela-
tion between the value of gold and that of silver.'
And after stating that Germany adheres to her present system, he says :
"The imperial goverrnnent is, on the other hand, entirely disposed to do
its best to second the eiforts of the other powers which might wish to unite,
with a view to the rehabilitation of silver by means of free coinage of this
metal. In order to reach this end and to guaranty these powers against
the afflux of German silver, which they seem to fear, the imperial govern-
ment would voluntarily impose upon itself the following restrictions:
"During a period of some years it would abstain from all sales of silver,
and during another period of a certain duration it would pledge itself to sell
annually only a limited quantity, so small in amount that the general market
would not be glutted thereby. The duration of these periods and the quan-
tity of silver to be sold yearly during the second period w-ouhl form the sub-
ject of ulterior negotiations. Such an arrangement would efficiently protect
the mints of bimetallic States against the unlimited overflow of German
thalers drawn from the national fund. Private individuals, or the Lnperial
Bank, (which is a private bank under special control of the government.)
would not be able, on the other hand, to cause thalers to flow to the mints
of tlie bimetallic union, except in the case of the balance of trade being
again.st Germany, or unless the relation of 1 to 15^ establi-hed by the bi-
metallic union should undergo a considerah.le moditication in favor of silver.
This last contingency appears, however, but slightly probable.
" In all other ca.ses the exportation of thalers would of necessity entail a less
to those who might undertake it; and hence the States of the l)imetallic union
have no occasion to apprehend that the silver of Germany will inundate their
miuts. Furthermore, these operations could be rendered still more difficult
by excluding specie in thalers from the coinage in the bimetallic union. A
measure of this kind would add to the other expenses to be borne by the ex-
porters of silver that of the cost of melting down and refining the thalers."
So the United States could very easily keep out an influx of European
coins by refusing to permit their coinage at our mints.
APPENDIX. 669
But the German delegate continues:
"If an international arrangement based upon these indications could be
arrived at, (iermany would still remain free to sell silver within these self-
imposed limits, or to sell none at all. But Germany, in order still further
to contract even these limits, might make other concessions. She could pro-
vide in lier own circulation a wider area for the metal silver, thus enlarging
the use of it.
'• To attain this end, the imperial government would engage eventually to
retire the gold pieces of five marks, (twenty-seven and three-fourths millions,)
as well as the imperial treasury notes of tlie same value, (forty millions ol
marks.) It might further melt down and recoiu the silver pieces of five and
two marks, (seventy-one and one hundied and one millions of marks,) taking
as a ba>is a relation between the two metals approaching that of 1 to 1'^^,
whereas under existing legislation one hundred marks are made from the
pound of fine silver, which is equivalent nearly to the ratio of 1 to 14.
"You have here, gentlemen, the concessions which the imperial govern-
ment would ofler, and of which its delegates are now ready to discuss the
scope and the details of execution."
This shows conclusively that the German Government sees the hazard in
the future involved in its new system, and that it is ready by self-impo?ed
restrictions to do all it can, short of present abandonment of the sys.tf m of
gold monometallism, to encourage the rehabilitation of silver. AVith these
restrictions imposed upon the sale of German silver, a very large part of
which, by the by, has already gone upon the market, and with the bimetallic
system accepted by the Latin Union, Austria-Hungary, and Russia, and with
said system prevailing as it now does all over the continent of America, and
with monometallism m silver as the rule in Asia, there coidd, it seems, be no
serious hazard to our Government and commerce in establinhing bimetallitm
on a firm basis.
It is very clear from the foregoing statement that the German Government
is not willing in future to sell its silver upon a basis of more silver than 1.5^
to 1 in gold. Under the present law of Germany there is a small quantity
of silver coined for each inhabitant of the empire, about ten marks, I believe,
and there, as stated by the German delegate, the ratio established is about
1 to 14. When our ratio is 1 to 16 there is no danger of German silver in-
undating our mints or interfering with our markets. They do not wish to
sell their silver at the price we put upon it. While we hold it at 1 to 16,
silver will be drained from America to Europe, and not from Europe to
America. This is clearly shown by the importation and exportation of gold
and silver for the past two years, and cannot be changed unless there is an
immense overproduction of silver. But here again the very reverse is true ;
the overproduction is in gold, and not in silver.
Dr. Broach, of Norway, prepared a table, which he laid before the mone-
tary conference of 1881, from the best sources of information at his com-
n)and, as to the production of the precious metals in the world since the
discovery of America, estimating the value of each metal during each period
in francs.
From the year 1493 to 1600 the whole production, in round numbers in
francs, was, of gold, 2,600, 0U0,000; silver. 5,074,0(iO,OUO. From 1601 to 1700,
of gold, 3.143,000,000; silver, 8,275,000,000. From 1701 to 1800, of jiold,
6,.544,O00,000 ; silver, 12,672,000,000. From 1801 to 1850, of gold, 4,081,-
000,000; silver, 7,271,000,000. During the twenty-nine years from 1851 to
1879, gold, 18,778,000,000; silver, 9, lUl, 000,000. Showing that during the
eighteenth century the silver produced by the world doubled the gold in
value. During the first half of the present century it occupied the rtlatiou
670 APPENDIX.
of about 4 in gold to 7 in silver; and for the last twenty-nine years the pro-
duction of gold has more than doubled that of silver.
So far, tiien, from tliere being a necessity for depreciating the value of
silver in the coinage on account of overproduction, the value of gold should
be depreciated and the value of silver increased. Jn oiher words, if either
must be demonetized on account of overproduction, it should de gold, which
from half the amount of silver produced during the eighteenth century
sprang during the twenty-nine years after 1850 lo double the auiount of
Sliver pioduced.
As already stated, then, overproduction is not the difficulty. The world
is making rapid strides in developing new enterprises every year. Commerce
has received an impetus from the discoveries njade in the arts and in the
sciences, in steam and eleciricity, within ihe last half of a centmy, which
has no parallel and no approximation to a parallel in all the Id-tory of the
past. The different nations of the world are being thrown together as near
neighbors, space is being annihilated, and the human race is becoming more
intimately associated as one people. There has been a rajiid advancement
in agriculture, in all the mechanic arts, in lailroading, shipbuilding, in trans-
portation on l.ind and by sea, in manufactures and commerce, requiring a
greatly incre:ised quantity of money fur a circulating medium to do the
business of the wuiid, and instead of an overproduction of the precious
metals, the great increase in the demand, and the yearly waste or loss Irom
use taken into the account, the j>resent production is not adequate to the
real wants of mankind. This is further demonstrated by the extensive us-e
of a paper circulation not ]iredicated upon a solid specie ba>is which several
great powers are compelled to adopt. In the monetary conference of 1878
Air. (joshen, in speaking of having gold alone as a standard, uttered a solemn
warning when lie said :
"Any important new step in this direction will have the effect of provok-
ing one of the gravest crises ever undergone by commerce."
And he adds :
" The theory of a universal gold standard is Utopian, and, indeed, involves
a false Utopia."
And lie might truthfully have added, it is a departure from the practice
of civdized nations for many centuries past.
Why, then, should we, the great silver-producing power, seek to depreciate
the value of this most valuable and precious product? Why should we join
with Great Britain and Germany in destroying the relative position it has
held during all the past history of the world as compared with gold, giving
to ^old alone the name and im[)ortance of money?
It is a well known fact that silver is the principal money or medium of
exchange used in China, British India, Japan, and in fact all the other
eastern nations. More than two thirds of tlie people of the globe prefer it
to gold, and use it chiefly as their money. South Ameiica is a large producer
of both gold and silver; so is Mexico, but there the silver dollar is still
recognized and used as a circulating medium, as legal money ; no discrimi-
nation against it.
We are fast becoming a vast manufacturing power, as well as a great agri-
cultural power, with a large surplus of our farm i)roducts and the products of
our different manufacturing establishments for exportation. We look chiefly
to China and otlier eastern nations and to South America as the markets
where we can most successfully compete wiih England and France and other
commercial powers, but especially with the former. There is a very large
balance of trade against us in Brazil and the West Indies. Both these
countries use silver as legal money. In paying tliat large balance of tiade
APPENDIX. 671
in specie, why should we send our gold, if we prefer to keep it, out of the
country, when they would as soon have silver? Wliy not send it to them in
payment of these balances? The same remark applies to the Hawaiian
Islands, where our purchase of sugar turns the balance of trade against us.
AVhy not maintain our silver standard and our silver coins, and pay these
balances in silver or in gold as it suits our convenience; and why not send
our silver to China and the other eastern nations in exchange for their com-
modities; for there, too, the balance of trade is largely against us?
We occupy the vantage-ground in this, that the balance of trade is largely
due to us from the great gold powers, as Great Britain and Germany, and
they settle balances with us in gold. On the other hand, the large balances
of trade against us are due to the foreign powers in which silver alone or
silver and gold are the standard, and we can settle with them in silver.
Great Britain in demonetizing silver may have advanced her Euiopean
interests, but it can not be said she has advanced lier trade with eastern
powers. She has struggled hard to introeluce gold currency in India, where
she dominates, but she has been unable to do so. Why then should not the
United States, the great silver producing power, stand by her production
and maintain for it its [)roper position as money, to be used perpetually in
otu' competition with Great Britain for this vast and growing trade?
Mr. Jevons, an able Briti.-^h author, speaking of the policy of Great Britain
and Germany in demonetizing silver and its effects upon the commercial
world, says :
"The nations of Europe constitute only a small part of the nations of the
earth. 1'he hiuidreds of millions who inhabit India and China and other
parts of the eastern and tropical regions employ a silver currency, and there
is not the least fear that they will make any sudden change in their habits.
The English (joverinnent has repeatedly tried to introduce gold currency^
into her East India possessions, but has always failed. The gold coins now*
circulating there are supposed not to exceed one-tenth of the metallic cur-
rency. Although the pouring out of forty or fifty millions sterling from Ger-
many may for some years depress the price of the metal, it can be gradually
absorbed without difficulty by the eastern nations, which have for two or
three thousand years received a continual stream of the precious metals from
Europe. If the other nations should one after another demonetize silver, yet
the East may be found quite able to alisorb all that is thrown upon it."
This is the opinion of an English writer. In this state of the case, why
should the Government of the United States, looking as it nmst do to these
great eastern nations for a vast commercial intercourse, which will be greatly
to our advantage, strike down silver as a currency or as a medium of ex-
change, and thus lose the great advantage which its use would give her with
those densely-populated countries where it stands in such high favor as the
principal currency in use? Looking to the present, and more especially to
the near future, it seems to me ttiat neither wise statesmanship nor practical
common sense would dictate such a course.
In the nature of things there can be no more reason why gold should fix
the standard value of silver than why silver should fix the standard value of
gold. Commercial nations have given to gold the greater value because it
was the scarcer n)etal. But in its essence it is no better adapted for the uses
of currency than silver; indeed, gold is probably less adapted to the uses of
a circulating medium, as the loss by wear, when the value is considered, is
much greater. But after all the value of ariy article or commodity to be used
as a circulating medium dei)ends on the ability and authority of the govern-
ment that puts it into circulation. A piece of blank bank-note paper is in-
trinsically as valuable as a one-hundred dollar United States Treasury note
672 • APPEXDIX.
of the same size and weight. But, in fact, the first is worth almost nothing,
while the last is worth a Imndred dollars. Why? Because the Tieasiny
note has upon it the stamp oi the authority of the Government of the United
States, declaring that this piece of paper shall be a legal tender in the pay-
ment of delits. If it were stamped with the same letters and figures, bearing
the same colors and appearance, with the name of some Indian tribe or Alrf-
can chief, it would probably have no greater value than its size and weight
in blank paper. It is the authority of the Government and its ability to pay
and its known good faith that j^ives value to its promises and causes mankind
to receive the paper bearing the stamp of its authority as money.
I have assumed, and I have no doubt correctly, in this age of enterprise,
improvement, and development, that all the gold and silver in the world is
scarcely adequate to the requirements of the world to supply the demand for
money now in existence. It might or might not have been as well for man-
kind if gold alone or silver alone had been agreed upon as the circulating
medium or as money. In that event all the property of the world, compared
with this standard, would to-day have had a value of say one-half its present
value computed in pounds or dollars, because the quantity of the circulating
medium or standard hy which all the property of the world was to be meas-
ured or weighed would have been, if gold had been the only standard, about
half what it now is. Say, for the puijiose of illustration, that one-half of the
money in the world estimated in dollars or pounds, to-day, is gold and the
other half is silver. If you strike down silver as a circulating medium and
destroy its value as money, you will have just one-half as nmch metallic
money in circulation as there was befoie you demonetized the silver. And
in doing this you at once reduce the price of every man's property as com-
pare! I with the standard value of gold coin just one-half. Kow I can very
readily see the great advantage such an act would be to those who have
hoarded large quantities of gold, and to the holders of gold in every part of
the world. Before the demonetization of silver, in the case supposed, the
property of each person was worth in dollars double the amount it is worth
after the demonetization. It would follow, therefore, that the creditor after
the denionetizatiou ot silver, in the collection of a debt contracted before the
demonetization, would get twice as much property in paymeiit of Ins debt as
he would have had if the currency had remained on a bimetallic basis as it
was when the debt wns contracted.
Again, every capitalist holding a large amount of gold at the time of the
demonetization of silver coidd afterwards buy twice as much jiroperty with
his gohl as he could have done if silver had remained money. It is not very
stranye that the wealthiest nations and the largest capitalists of the world,
having the control of most of the gold of the world, should desire to strike
down silver as a circulatini: medium, or as money, and establish gold as the
sole staii'lard, as this would at once double their wealth by giving them tlie
control of the larger part of tie money of the world, and enabling them, with
that money, to buy double as much property as they could have bought under
the old system.
Let us consider this question a moment in connection with our own aifairs
in this country. At the time silver was demonetized by Congress there was
a very large proportion of the people of the United States heavily in debr.
A much smaller class, who were capitalists of great wealth and power, had
large accumulations of money at their command. Most of those belonging
to this ablt*, wealthy, and honorable class were bankers, bondholders, or
heavy capitalists. Tlie United States Treasury notes known as greenbacks
had been depreciated almost from the time they were issued and had at that
time never reached par. And why? Because the Government, in issuing
APPENDIX. 673
them, had declined to make them a legal tender in payment of the bonds of
the United States or of the coupons upon the bonds, and liad declined itself
to receive ihem in payment of duties on imports. It they had been receiva-
ble by the Government they would long since have been at par. In this in-
flated cou'lition of the currency, when greenbacks were far below par, the
people had contracted large indebtedness. At that time those debts could
be paid either in greenbacks, gold, or sdver coin. But Congress, it is believed,
at the instance and certainly with the warm approbation of the bondholders,
the bankeis, the capitalists, and the monopolists of this country, passed the
act to (ienionelize silver, thereby, in case of every indebtedness over tive dol-
lars, making gold the only legal metallic tender in payment. Congress at
that time still refused to receive its own Treasury notes in payment ot duties
on imports.
It lias been frequently said in discussions of this currency question that
justice to the public creditors of the United States requires that the bonds of
the Government should be redeemed in gold c<iin, which is the only money
that is a legal tender in Great Britain and Germany and which the gold
party of the United States has struggled hard to dignify with the same ex-
clusive prerogative in this country.
And liere the secretary of the treasury comes in as an able ally of the
gold p-irty and the bondholders. In his annual report, referring to the act
of IHTS, he says:
" Although the act of July 14, 1870, provides for the issue of United States
bonds redeemable in coin of the present standard value, whereby were in-
cluded both gold and silver coin of that value, yet as by the act of February
12, 1873, the further coinage of silver dollars was prohibitfd, and the Re-
vised Statutes declared gold coin only to be a legal tender for sums exceed-
ing five dollars, equity, if not strict construction ot law, requires that the
holders of such bonds should receive payment in gold or its equivalent."
Now, I desire not to be misunderstood on this question. I stand firmly by
the public credit. I am in favor of paying the last obligation of the United
States in strict compliance with the contract. In other words, I am for the
strictest good faith in the payment of the public debt as a whole and in ev-
ery part. But 1 am not in favor of giving large gratuities to the public cred-
itor at the expense of the people of the United States. In my opinion gold
and silver of the legal standard with the present ratio of equivalence in this
country is a safe and a proper currency to be used by this Government and
by the people ot this country in the [)ayment of every debt of every charac-
ter. And I am in favor of maintaining such a currency, and of applying it
alike to all the creditors and all the people of the United States. I'aui op-
posed to the contraction of our greenback currency, and I would reissue them
in payment by the Government when redeemed. But I am in favor of re-
deeming tlie greenbacks whenever they are presented by the creditor at par,
in gold and silver of the old standard, just as I would pay the bondholder at
par in the same currency. In other words, I am opposed to one currency
tor the bondiiolders and another for the people who hold greenbacks or have
other obligations of the United States. I know the public tlt^bt is sacred and
the claims of tlie bondholder are of as high character as the claims of any
other creditor of the Government; but they are of no higher dignitv.
Let us examine this question for a moment. During the late civil war
there was, I believe, no period after the first few months of its existence
when greenbacks were at par with gold and silver. There was a time, how-
ever, when the irresistible gallantry and splendid successes of the Confeder-
ate troops caused the gravest apprehension in the minds of the ablest states-
men coutroUiiig the Federal Government, as well as in the minds of the
43
C7-4 APPENDIX.
mass of the people of the United States, whether it was possible to suppress
what is known as the " rebellion," and restore the Government. These
doubts at once produced their effect upon the public credit, and a period was
reached where one dollar in gold or silver coin was worth about two and a
half in greenbacks. At this stage the Government was buying immense sup-
plies of ordnance, camp equipage, clothing, provisions and other articles for
the army; and it paid out vast amounts in Treasury notes, usually called
greenbacks, in the purchase of these necessary supplies; and these notes or
obligations were issued at par, notwithstanding their then depreciated
value.
To illustrate: a farmer in Ohio possessed one hundred bushels of corn.
The Government needed it. It was worth in the market forty cents per
bushel in gold or silver. In greenbacks, at 2^ for 1, it was worth $100.
The farmer sold it to the commissary for .1100 in greenbacks, which he held
until a later period, when, under the act of Congress passed April 12, 1866,
he converted those greenbacks at par into a bond of the United States draw-
ing 6 par cent, interest.
Now I do not deny that this was a legitimate transaction. The farmer had
a right to sell his corn for the use of the army at its market value and take
payment in greenbacks, in their then state of depreciation ; and when the
act of Congress authorized the funding of those greenbacks in the bonds of
the United States he had a right to avail liimself of the provisions of the act;
and by his good fortune he became the holder of a bond of the Government,
payable in gold or silver coin, for an amount that was two and a half times
the value in specie of his corn when he sold it to the Government.
But having become a legal creditor of the Government, the holder of one
of its bonds for $100 for one hundred bushels of corn that were worth in the
market at the time he sold it but $10 in the same coin which he is to receive
in payment for his bond, he is neither in equity nor justice a legal creditor
of higher dignity than any other legal creditor of the Government. And
there was no very substantial reason why there sliould have been one cur-
rency established by law for his benefit and another for the benefit of a
holder of another class of the obligations of the Government. Congress care-
fully provided, however, that the interest on his debt and the debt itself
when due should be paid in gold or silver coin, while other creditors were
compelled to take payment in greenbacks. To carry out this arrangement
the Government refused to receive its own Treasury notes in payment of
custom-house dues upon imports, but compelled such paymetits tobe made
in coin ; and that coin, or a sufficient quantity of it to meet the demand, was
set apart for the payment of the coupons of the bondholder and for the pay-
ment of the bond at its maturity, while other creditors of the Government
of otiier classes were compelled by law to receive the depreciated greenbacks
in payment of their demands, and the people were compelled to receive them
of each other in payment of debts due from man to man.
The bondholders became a large and very influential class, and they seem
to have been the peculiar favorites of the Government; and in 1873 an act
was passed, as already stated, demonetizing the silver coii., in which the
Ohio farmer above mentioned, at the option of the Government, had agreed
to take payment of his bond, and which every other bondholder had by con-
tract agreed to receive in payment, and gold by that act being made the only
le»ral tender coin of the United States the farmer became entitled to receive
while the act was in force in gold coin payment of the one-hundred-dollar
l:>ond which he had received for one hundred bushels of coin worth forty
cents a bushel in gold or silver at the time he sold it. This act demonetizing
silver and making gold the only legal tender in payment of debts over $5 was
APPENDIX. 675
followed by a contraction of the currency. This was followed, in Septem-
ber, 1873, by the great commercial crash, and the contraction went on, and
the price of property went down, down, until the farmer with the gold re-
ceived for liis coupons could buy produce in the market for a little over half
its value at the time he converted his greenbacks into a bond. The same
rule which applied in case of the farmer, with his one-hundred-dollar bond,
applied in case of every other bondholder. Silver, in which the Government
had a right by the contract to pay all the bonds, had been demonetized; the
commercial crash had followed ; the price of everything had become greatly
depreciated; gold would buy in the market a much larger amount of prop-
erty than it would have purchased before the demonetization of silver and
before the crash. The bondholders got the benefit of this extraordinary
state of tilings; the people were the sufferers. It certainly cannot be said,
then, that the United States Government has dealt otherwise than liberally
■with the bondholders.
I make no further point upon the past. I simply recite what I understand
to be the history of this mattei". But I say most emphatically that I am un-
willing in future that there should be one currency for the bondholder and
another and a different currency for the satisfaction of other claims against
the Government, and for a medium of exchange for the whole mass of the
people of this country. In other words, I would have the Government
purchase the bullion with gold and silver certificates when offered for sale,
and I would compel the coinage at the mints of the United States, for just
compensation, of all the gold and all the silver produced in this country that
may be tendered for coinage, at the present ratio of 1 to 16, till the other
commercial powers have agieed, as I believe they will do at no distant date,
upon the ratio of 1 in gold to 15^ in silver. And I would make that gold
and silver coin a legal tender in payment of all debts to all creditors of every
class, public or private, and in all transactions among the people of the
United States.
The act of 1870 makes the bonds payable in coin of the then standard
value, which included both gold and silver. Subsequent acts for the issue of
bonds provide that they shall be paid in coin of the standard value of 1870.
This being inserted carefully in the face of the bonds, every holder is put on
notice when he receives the bond that it is payable in gold or silver coin of
the standard of 1870 at the option of the Government. That is, each holder
contracts to receive payment in gold coin of 25.8 grains of standard gold to
the dollar, or 412^ grains of standard silver to the dollar. The Government,
by the act of 1873, suspended the coinage of the silver dollar of this standaid,
and for the time suspended its legal-tender quality. Afterwards, before the
bonds of the present holders came due, it resinned the coinage of the silver
dollar of 412^ grains, and restored its legal-tender quality.
Now the Secretary of the Treasury argues that this temporary suspension
of the issue of the silver dollar as a legal tender gave the bondholder the
right in equity to demand payment in gold coin alone. In other words, that it
gives him a right in equity to refuse to accept in payment silver coin of the
exact description stipulated for in the contract, because there was a period
between the date of his bond and its maturity when the Government did not
issue legal-tender silver dollars of the description mentioned in the bond.
Now 1 deny that the bondholder has any such equity. He contracted to
take coin in standard silver dollars of 412^ grains. When the bond is due
he is entitled to receive silver dollars of the standard of 1870, or gold dollars,
at the option of the Government. And it is too clear for argument that this
is the full measure of his rights and equities under the contract. It does
not matter whether the Government coined or possessed a silver or a gold
676 APPENDIX.
dollar durino: the period the bond had to run. I£ it has the coin of the
standard of 1870, and tenders it to hiia in payment, at the maturity of each
coupon and at the maturity of each bond he gets the full measure of his
rights in law, equity, and justice, and he has no right to demand or receive
anything more. And the Government can give him no more without fla-
grant injustice to its tax-payers.
The Secretary of tlie Treasury .says the Government is able to pay the
bonds in gold. That is true. The people of tliis country are able to pay,
within a reasonable time, the bonds in gold, with 50 per cent, added. Tliey
are able to make a present to each bondholder of 50 per cent, on the amount
of his bond. But upon wliat principle of equity, justice, or conmion honesty
can he demand it? I protest against all such gratuities to the bondholders
and injustice to the people.
Having thus frankly stated my position on tliis question, I must be per-
mitted further to express my regrets that the Secretary of the Treasury, in
liis annual report, and the rre.-ident, in his message, have thouglit proper to
iecon)mend still further restriction on the coinage of silver and the with-
drawal of the silver certificates from circulation. To contract still further,
or to di.-continue for months or years, as the Secretary recommends, the
coinage of silver, the production of our own mines, seems to me to be great
injustice to one of the important industries of this country. 13ut tiiis is not
the worst. It is an act of gross injustice to all the lab.)ring masses, no mat-
ter in what branch of industry they may be engaged. It amounts to a con-
traction of the currency of the country, a destruction of part of tlie circulating
medium, which must result in the depreciation of the value of the property
of tiie people, the stagnation of business, the obstruction of enterprise, the
reduction of the price ot labor, and the sacrifice of the property of the debtor
class to satisfy the claims of the creditor at a price far below its value when
the indebtedness was created. And all for what? In plain English, that
the rich may be made richer and the poor poorer.
What is the circulation it is proposed to retire ? It is $G6 000,000 of silver
certificates. What are these certificates? Each is in substance a certificate
that there is in the Treasury of tlie United States the number of legal-tender
eilver dollars mentioned en its face, which belong to the bearer. It is no in-
flated ]iaper currency. Each dollar of it is predicated upon a dollar of the
legal coin of the United States, held by the Government, payable to the
owner on demand.
One of the chief objections made to silver coin by it opponents was that it
i-i bulky, heavy, and inconvenient to handle, transport, or count in making
payments. So is gold coin in a le.ss degree. But this difliculiy is met and
overcome at once, in case of both metals, by the use of the silver or gold
certificate. Instead of trans[)orting the coin from place to place, to be used
in settlements or other transactions, the gold and silver coin is deposited in
a vault in the Treasury, that is perfectly burglar-proof, in charge of the
proper ollicers and under the necessary guard ; and, instead of semiing out
ten silver dollars or ten gold dollars, the Treasurer issues a certificate which
represents the ten dollars in either coin, which contains the pledge of the
faith of the Government that the ten dollars in coin which the certificate
represents is in the Treasury, payable to the bearer on demand. Tiiis cer-
tificate, in the siiape of a Treasury note, is transported nnd used in payment
with all the ease and facility of a bank bill. Tlie same rule which applies in
case of the ten dollars applies equally to ten millions or a billion of dollars ;
the coin lies in the Treasmy, and the certificates which represent it go into
circulation as money in its jdace. Is'ot a dollar of certificate is issued with-
out a dollar in specie in the Treasury which it repiesents.
APPENDIX. 677
This, in my opinion, is the soundest and most reliable currency that can
be used by the Government. It is not subject to any of the objections which
apply to the old hanking system, where the bank was autlioiized lo issue
three dollars in bills for each dollar in specie. The Government issues its
certificates dollar for dollar with the coin in the Treasury. What better cur-
rency could any people desire? What sounder currency did any pe(>|ile ever
possess? It meets fully the objection made to coin on account of its being
inconvenient to handle, and substitutes in the place of coin its representative
in paper, which is convenient to handle. The representative is only equal in
amount to the coin represented. The depreciation of the representative is
impossible, because a dollar in legal-tender coin lies in the Treasury ever
ready to meet the demand of the holder.
There is a larj;e wear, and consequent loss, in the handling of the coin,
whether gold or silver, while it passes from place to place, and from hand to
hand in payment. But if it is laid up securely in the vault of tlie Treasury,
and its representative in paper passes from place to place and from hand to
hand in its stead, there is no wear of the coin, and no loss or depreciation on
that score.
It is true the silver certificate, or the gold certificate, issued may be lost
upon the ocean, or burnt in a house, or otherwise destroyed, so that the
holder loses it just as he loses a bank bill. Hut he takes this risk for the
convenience of the circulation, just as he takes it in case of the bills of a
bank. In the case of the lost certificate, the Government, representinj,' the
whole people of the United States, holds the coin represented by the lost cer-
tificate as the money of the people, when the certificate cannot be identified
and established. In case of a bank bill the owner loses the amount j.ist as
he would lose it in ca~e of the gold or silver certificate. In every view of it,
therefore, the silver certificate and the gold certificate would be a better cur-
rency for the people of the United States than the currency now in use in
tlie shape of bank bills.
I refer in this connection to the bills of banks, because the President and
the Secretary of the Treasury, in recommending.' the withdrawal of the silver
certificates, propose that the banks issue their bills to take the place of the
certificates in the circulation of the country. Why should we withdraw the
silver certificates to make room for bank bills? When withdrawn, if the
bankers, who are generally large capitalists, should determine that it is their
interest to contract the currency, and not issue other bills in lieu of the silver
certificates withdrawn from circulation, they would have the power to make
a contraction of fifty millions or more in the present volume of t!ie currency,
and theie is no law to control it. It is not proposed, as I understand it, to
compel the banks to issue other bills to take the place of the silver certifi-
cates withdrawn, but it is proposed to leave them under our banking laws
with the privilege of issuing their bills in lieu of certificates. In other
words, if the policy of the President and the Secretary of tiie Treasury is
carrieii out, we exchange a better currency for a worse one in this, that
the silver certificate is always redeemable promptly on delivery at the
Treasury, in legal-tender dollars, while the bank bill, in case of a failure of
the bank, though secure, is not so promptly redeemed. True, the Govern-
ment in the end provides for the redemjition of national-bank bills. But
why have this cumbrous machinery? AVhy prefer to authorize the banks to
issue bills lor the payment of which they give the Government security,
rather than authorize the issue by the Government of its certificates, which
represent gold or silver lying in the vault of the Treasury ?
I say nothing in reference to our banking system. That is a question I
do not puipose at present to consider. But I do say I would never consent
678 AVPEI^DIX.
to the withdrawal of the silver certificates or gold certificates, of the kind
above mentioned, to make looiii for the circulation of hank bills. I would
never do the people the injustice to take from them the legitimate prfifits of
such a circulation that 1 might give those profits to curporations, capitalists,
or organised monopolists. And why risk the contraction of the currency by
witlxirawing gold and silver from circulation by their legitimate representa-
tives, leaving it in the hands of the bankers to expand or contract at their
will or as their interest may dictate?
Such a policy may serve the interest of the few who have large wealth and
enable them greatly to increase tlieir accumulations, but it can never benefit
the laboring masses of our people, the hardy sons of toil, who earn their
bread by the sweat of the brow; and after all, whether in the field of pro-
duction, the harvest-field, or the field of battle, they are the bone and siuew
and muscle and nerve of society.
The middle classes and laboring men of our country are always most pros-
perous when every branch of industry is flourishinsx. When trade is active
our villages, towns, and cities are building up. When the products of our
factories and mines are in active demand ; when new railroads are being con-
structed, new boats put upon our rivers, and new lines of steamers upon the
ocean ; wlien our machine-shops are kept busy to make and repair motive
power and other means of transportation, then the engineer, the machinist,
the mechanic, and the artisan find ready demand for their labor at good
prices, and the farmer and planter remunerative and liberal prices for tlieir
productions. This state of things can never exist while the capitalists of the
country, backed by the Government, pursue the policy of contracting the
currency founded upon a specie basis, which contraction drives new enter-
prises from the field, destroys the demand for labor, reduces the value of
property, and produces distrust, depression and bankruptcy.
Speech of Hox. Josfph E. Brown, of Georgia, ox the ^Ioumox Ques-
tion, Dkliveued IX THE Senate of the United States, on the
ItJTH Day of February, 1882.
On the bill (S. No. 353) to amend section 5352 of tlie Revised Statutes of the United
States, in reference to bigamy, and for other purposes.
Mr. Brown said:
Mr. President: I am very well aware that there is great popular clamor
for the passage of this bill or some very rigorous and severe bill for the sup-
pression of IMormonism. I do not wish my position to be misundirstood in
reference to that institution. I am no advocate of polygamy. I dejnecate
and denounce it as one of the greatest of social evils. I do not believe it
should be practiced anywhere. I am ready to unite in imposing such penal-
ties as we can constitutionally impose within the United States upon those
who do practice it, because of its immoiality. And yet I am obliged to
admit, and we are all obliged to admit, that it is practiced, and popidar
pentiment sustains it among three-fourths of the whole population of the
globe.
England has had this same question to deal with. W^hen she assumed the
dominion of India she found polygamy there, and it has been there from
time immemorial. They did not do what popular sentiment seeks to compel
us now to do. The English people did not attempt to crush it out by law,
but the Britisli Parliament and the British courts rero<j;nized it in India
on assuming control and recognize it to-day. Indeed they dare not do other-
APPENDIX. 679
wise. They can enforce no law in India that proposes to exterminate polyg-
amy.
On that subject I propose to read a paragraph from Allen's India, a book
whicli I now hold in my hand. On pnge 551 I find this language :
" Polygamy is practiced in India among tlie Hindus, the Mohammedans,
the Zoroastrians and the Jews. It is allowed and recognized by the insti-
tutes of Menu, by the Koran, by the Zendavesta, and the Jews believe by
their Scriptures — the Old Testament. It is recognized by all the courts in
India — native and English. The laws of the British Parliament recognize
polygamy among all these clasj^es, when the marriage connection has been
formed according to the principles of their religion and to their established
laws and usages. The marriage of a Hindu or a Mohammedan with his
Becond or his third wife is just as valid, and as legally binding on all parties,
as his marriage with his first wife; just as valid as the marriage of any Chris-
tian in the Church of England."
Mr. Edmunds. May I ask the senator if the same book contains a state-
ment of the laws of Thibet, where one woman may lawfully marry several
husbands, and all of them be bound to the marital relation ?
Mr. Brown. I am not able to answer that, for I have not read all the
book. A senator handed it to me this morning, but I have not had the op-
portunity to peruse it except sufficiently for my purpose on the point above
mentioned. 1 will say to the senator from Vermont, however, that tlie Eng-
lish Government has recognized polygamy in India by her courts and by her
Parliament, and she recognizes it to-day. I say I deprecate the institution,
and I am ready to do everything I can constitutionally and legally do to
exterminate it where we have the power; but we cannot shut our eyes to the
fact that it exists, as already stated, among the greater portion of the popu-
lation of the whole globe.
Not only do the British Parliament and the British courts recognize it, but
the missionaiies of all Christian churches in India recognize it, and do not
attempt to overthrow it where the marriage has already been solemnized. I
■will read from the same book, Allen's India, page 601 :
" The Calcutta missionary conference, consisting of the missionaries of the
different societies which have missionaries in that city and its vicinity, after
frequent consultations and much consideration on the subject of polygamy as it
exists in India, were unanimous in the following opinions:
" 1. It is in accordance with tlie spirit of the Bible and the practice of the
Protestant churcli to consider the state as the proper fountain of legisla-
tion in all civil questions aflecting marria<re and divorce.
"2. The Bible being the true standard of morals, ought to be consulted
in everything which it contains on the subject of marriage and divorce, and
nothing determined contrary to its general principles.
"3. Married persons, being both Christians, should not be divorced for
any other cause than adultery. But if one of the parties be an unbeliever,
and though not an adulterer, wilfully depart from and desert the other, a di-
vorce may be properly sued for. They were of the opinion, however, that
such liberty is allowable only in extreme cases, and where all known means
of reconciliation after a trial of not less than one year have failed.
" 4. Heathen and Mohammedan marriages and divorces, recognized by
the laws of the country, are to be held valid. But it is strongly recommended
that if either party before conversion liave put away the other on slight
ground, the divorced party should in all practicable and desirable cases be
taken back again.
" 5. If a convert before becoming a Christian has married more wives
than one, in accordance with the practice of the Jewish and primitive Chris-
680 APPENDIX.
tian chinches, he shall be permitted to keep them all ; but such a person is
not eligible to any office in the church. In no other case is polygamy to be
tolerated, among Cln istians."
Tlius it appears that the conference of the missionaries of the Christian
churches in Calcutta recognizes tiiis institution. They do not permit their
members in the future, or after their conversion and their connection with
the church, to mariy more than one wife; but they do not altemi t to dis-
solve marriagi's in existence at ihe time of the conversion, but they hold that
a m.in who bi^comes a Christian, who h;is more than one wife at tlie time, is
to continue to cohabit with his wives. I presume this ari-es out of tlie very
necessity of the case, as polygamy is so firndy established in tiio.-e countries
that it would be impossible to plant Christianity there without recognizing
the existing institutions of the country, at least so far as tlie family relations
of the convert are concerned at the time of his union witli the ciiurch.
Again, it cannot be denied that polygamy was tolerated by the Old Testa-
ment, and many persons believe it is not prohibited by the New, exrei-t in case
of a bisliop, or a deacon, who it is said ^hall be the husband of one wife. Some
reason subtly on that by saying that we should apply to it the Latin maxim,
expressio unius est exclusio alterius, and they say the fact that the expression
that the deacon or the bishop shall be the husband of one wife only, carries
with it the implication that others may have more than one. I think this is
a very far-fetched and strained construction ; I do not agree with it. fur the
whole teachings of the New Testament, it seems to me, are very clear and
positive that the husband shall have but one wife. I remember no instance
where husband and wife are mentioned in the New Testament where any-
thing is said about more than one wile, and whde there is no positive inhi-
bition, except in the instance mentioned of officers of the churches, it is very
clearly to be inferred that polygamy was not intended from tlie fact that there
is no instance of more than one wife mentioned as connected with any one
man, or that any man is justitied in liaving more than om-. Uut there are
those, I say, who entertain a different opinion on this subject, and they
must have their opinion. I have no right to fly in their teeth about it.
But, Mr. President, there are those in tiie Alormnn teriitory who believe
that there is a divine revelation later than tlie New Testament which author-
izes a member or the Mormon Church to have more wives than one. They
believe iii the revelation, as they term it, made by God himself to their pro-
phet, Joseph Smith. 1 do not believe in it, but they religiously believe it.
Many of them are as earnest and hone>t in their faith as 1 am in tlie iiaptist
faith, or as other senators are in the Methodist or Presbyterian faiih. I tiiink
they are greatly in error; but I have no more right, if they do not practice
it, to disfranchise them on account of that belief than I have to disfraiicliise
any senator in this chamber or any man out of it who believes that the New
Testament does not forbid polygamy.
Mr. Edmunds. May 1 suggest to the senator that there is nothing what-
ever in tliis bill that disfranchises aiiy man or woman on account of any
opinion or belief he or she may have?
Mr. Brown. Mr. President, I assert that there is. I take issue squarely
with the senator from Vermont.
Mr. Edmunds. Will the senator kindly point it out?
Mr. Brown. I will. I find in section seven of this bill this language :
"That no polygamist, bigamist, or any person cohabiting willi more than
one woman, ami no woman cohabiting with any of the persons described as
aforesaid in this section, in any Territory or other place over which the United
States liave exclusive jurisdiction, shall be entitled to vote at any election
held iu any such Territory or other place, or be eligible for election or appoint-
APPENDIX. 681
ment to or be entitled to hold any office or place of public trust, honor, or
emoliuneut in, under, or for any such Territory or place, or under the United
Statfs."
Now to the first part of the section again :
"No [lolyijamist, Itiganiist, or any person cohabiting with more than one
woman, * * * sliall be entitled to vote."
Who is a polygainist? I hold in my hand Webster's Unabridged Diction-
ary, which is very good authority, I believe:
" Polygainist : ajierson who practices polygamy, or maintains itx la>r fulness,"
There is scarcely a man, woman, or child in Utah belonging to the Mormon
church who does not maintain the laivfulness of polygamy.
Mr. Edmunds. The senator is mistaken about that, but that is not any
part of the argument.
i\Ir. liiown. There may be a few —
Mr. Eilmuuds. Tiiere may be a great number, and there are.
Mr. Brown. There are very few, if any, who doubt it.
Mr. Edmunds. I oan tell you just how many there are, in a minute.
Mr. Brown. I will thank the senator. I suppo.se there are some in every
country connected with every faith who do not believe in all that their par-
ticular church or sect holds. I have been among the Mormons, however ; I
have .seen something of their society ; and I know the great prevailing opinion
there is tiiat God by a divine revelation made known to the prophet, Joseph
Smith, that a man in the Mormon church may have more than one wife,
that he may practice polygatny. Only a small number of them do practice
it, I ailmit; but it is almost, if not quite, the universal belief that they have
the right to do it.
Mr. Edmunds. Of course we cannot have a judicial trial to-day to find out,
as my brother from Alabama wishes to do on this political question, how the
fact is; but according to the returns obtained by the census people (not
always under the act of Congress, because they go beyond that) of what are
called apcistate Mormons, who do not hold up to the polygamy doctrine, there
are ii.988 in the Territory, and of what are calleil Josejihite Mormons who
hold up to all the doctrines except that one thing — but I do not know pre-
cisely the distinction between the Apostate and Jo^ephite Mormons — there
are 82i). So it would seem there are more than 7,000 of the Mormons, be-
sides certain ones put down as doubtful whom I leave out, who do not ap-
pear to believe in this revelation of polygamy which occurred about twenty
or thirty years after the finding of the astonishing gold tablets and so on.
That is the Book of the Covenant.
Mr. Brown. I think they were brass, not gold.
Mr. Edmunds. Perhaps they had most to do with brass.
;Mr. Brown. I do not think they were pure gold.
Mr. Edmunds. As I liave been reading the Book of Covenants of the
Mormon church lately with assiduity, I think they were gold, but at any rate
the polygamous thing came in more than twenty years after its supposed
discovery and came in under circumstances that if my friend woidd read the
very book itself to show how it came and why and so on, I think he would
be satisfied that it would take a pretty stout-hearted man among the Mor-
mons to tiiink that that was of divine revelation, for it absolutely reversed
the previous revelation from the invisible world. 1 did not want to interrupt
the senator, however.
Mr. Brown. It is no interruption. I do not presume I am as well posted
in Mormon literature as the honorable senator from Vermont, though I have
read some of it. I agree with him that in the commencement Mormonism
did not tolerate or practice polygamy ; you may read the book of Mormon
682 APPENDIX.
and you will nowhere find in that book that polygamy is tolerated ; hut the
Mormons believe that subsequently to the discovery of that book, which the
senator says was on gold plates — I think they were brass —
Mr. p]dmunds. We will compound it and call it silver, which is a popular
thing. [Laughter.]
Mr. Rrown. Any where along between. [Laughter.] They say that since
that discovery God revealed to Jose[)h Smith under circumstances, as tiie
senator says, that do Tiot carry conviction to my mind, though tliey do to tlieir.s,
that a man might have more than one wife. And now ju^t in that connection
let us say a little more about tlie ^lormon faith.
As I understand the ^lormon doctrine and the Mormon people, they pro-
fess to believe as firmly as we do in the Old Testament, but they say much
of the Old Testament is repealed by the New. Then they profess to believe
in all the New, that has not been repealed by later inspirations and revela-
tions; but tliey believe that there are certain tilings in the New 'J'estanient
which have been repealed by later revelations from Heaven. I am speaking
of tlieir faith, so far as I could learn it among them during the sliort stay I
made there some two or three years since. 1 could hear of no one connected
with tlie Mormon church who disbelieved this doctrine. At any rate, out of
the one liundred and forty-odd tliousand population in that Territory, or con-
nected with that church, according to the estimate of the senator from Ver-
mont, (if that is a correct census return,) there are only about six or seven
thousand who do not believe in polygamy.
]\lr. Edmunds. The whole population is 14.3,963, according to the census.
Mr. Brown. Then it would leave 187,000 in round numbers, who do be-
lieve in it a<jainst 6,000 who do not.
]\Ir. Edmunds. Oh no, the senator is mistaken. I only speak of the Mor-
mon population, the total Mormon population.
Mr. Brown. Tlie senator is confining himself to the Territory of Utah.
[Addressing Mr. P2dmunds.] Do you not know that the Mormons have very
strong church relations with, and have planted colonies in, other Territories?
]\Ir. Edmunds. I do not know anything about that. 1 was speaking of
Utah alone.
Mr. Brown. Mr. President, they are as unanimous on this question as any
church or any people anywhere are on any question. There may be some
dissenters; doubtless there are some. They maintain, in other words, the
latrfulness of polygamy. Then, according to the definition given by Web-
ster, they are polyganiists ; and then, according to this bill, they are every
one disfranchised. It is a sweeping disfranchisement of almost the entire
people of a 'J'erritory. And in order to carry out that disfram hisement we
must resort here to a practife better known in the South than it li;is been
in the North. Whenever it is necessary to make a Republican State out of
a Democratic State, or a Republican State out of a Dfinocratic Territory, the
most convenient machinery for that purpose is a Returning Board, and it
has worked admirably in the South. By fraud, perjury, forgery, and vil-
lainy, the returniiig-board system cheated the people of these United States
out of a legal election for President. It does not therefore f-jiecially com-
mend itself to the American people. It stinks in the nostrils of honest men.
We propose now to deal with this question by constituting a Returning
Board of five persons to be appointed by the President of the I'nited States,
with the advice and consent of the senate, all of whom, says the bill, as
brought forth by the Committee on the Judiciary, shall not l>e members of
the same political party. I propose to amend it by saying not mure than
three of whom shall l)e membei's of the same political l>arty, so as to compel
the appointment of two Democrats in place of one ; and on the other side of the
APPENDIX. 683
chamber that proportion is stoutly met and resisted. Why is it that it is neces-
sary to liave four of the five members of this board Republicans, and only one
Democrat? Will not a majority do this job as well as a minority V Cannot
three carry out the object? ]f the Democrats have two, it seems it is feared
it mifilit not work ; and it is safer not to trust it to them, lest, to the great
disap[iointment of some very patriotic gentlemen, it might turn up a Demo-
cratic State.
In my opinion the people of Utah have at least one good quality, and that
is, that an overwhelming majority of them are Democrats. If we ever reach
a point where they are to be adiTiitted into the Union, they have a right to
come in as a Democratic State; but under this Returning Board legerdemain,
it is very fair to presume that they will not be permitted so to come. If not
even two out of the five who are to manipulate the returns are to be Demo-
crat^j, there can be but little hope of a Democratic State. And there may be
a verj' good political reason just there, why the whole population, almost
en musse, should be disfranchised. If they are permitted to vote, there is no
chance for a Republican State. If a returning board manipulates the elec-
tion, and the population of Utah, or a vast majority of them, are driven from
the pulls, then there is a prospect of a Republican State there.
Not only does this bill as reported by the Committee on the Judiciary
propose to disfranchise and drive from the polls almost the entire population
of Utah, but it proposes in the very teeth of the Constitution of the United
States to disfranchise them from the right to hold office.
Mr. Kdnnrnds. Will the senator from Georgia mind if in connection with
that remark of his I should read the legal definition of a bigamist and polyg-
amist as distinguished from his Webster definition.
Mr. IJrown. Go on, sir.
Mr. Edmunds. Turning from the land of literature to the resion of law,
with which statutes are supposed to have something to do, I will read out of
the first book I sent for at random — Burrill's Law Dictionary, supposed to be
pretty correct, this clause:
"Bigainus. — In old P^nglish law. One who has been twice married, or
has married more than one wife; a bigamist. Applied originally in the
canon law, to clerks or ecclesiastical persons, who were forbidden to marry
a second time, * * * Bif/'imus is he that either hath married two or more
wives, or that hath married a widow. "
Under the old law a man who married a widow was a bigamist, I do not
think under the modern law this statute would prevent a man marrying a
widow. Now 1 come to what is more to the point I am speaking to:
" A polvgamist is he who has had two or more wives at the .same time. —
3 Inst.. 88. "
So that I bog to assure my distinguished friend from Georgia that the
Judiciary Committee thought — very likely it was mistaken after what he and
Webster have .said — that the legal definition of "bigamist" and "polvgam-
ist" was perfectly understood everywhere, not a matter of opinion, but a
matter of fact. I thank my friend for allowing me to state this.
Mr. Brown. I much prefer that my friend from Vermont should state all
his points as we go along.
Mr. Edmunds. I would not do it to interrupt the senator's remarks.
Mr. Blown. The senator from Vermont has produced a book which de-
fines a biiramist to be a man who has married a widow, and a polygamist
a man who has had two or more wives at the same time. He himself repu-
diates the first definition ; and the last does not embrace a man who now has
two wives. I am certainly content if the senator is. And I am willing to
684 APPENDIX.
put Webster against Burrill as an authority on the definition of words, or the
meaning of ihe English language.
Ko matter what Bunill may say, it will be very convenient for this Re-
publican returning hoard, when they go to Utah, to take A\'ebster in their
hands and drive from the polls every voter who propo-es to cast a bal-
lot, if he is a member of the Mormon Church, on the ground that he is a
polygamist. I would not like to leave it in the hands of such a board, with
such an authority as Webster to sustain them, to determine whether a
Democrat who believes in the lawfulness of polygamy, thoush he does not
practice it, should he entitled to vote. It would be like leaving the lamb in
the inclosure with the wolf. There would be no prospect of his vote being
received.
But at the time I was interrupted by the honorable senator from Vermont
I had statt^d that I would proceed to show that this bill if passed disfran-
chises Mormons from holding otlice on account of their religious opinions, in
the teeth of the Constitution of the United States. I read from article
6, section 3, of the Constitution of the United States :
" But no religious test shidl ever be required as a qualification to any office
or public trust under the United States. "
It has been argued here that the Congress of the United States has abso-
lute power over the Territories and over the District of Columbia; that we
can give to the Territories and the Districtsuch government as we think proper.
It is outside of mv purpose to controvert that ; it is not necessary that I
should. But nothing cmu give to Congress the right, in the teeth of the Con-
stitution, to prescribe a religious test for a person living in the District or in
the 'ierritories that excludes him from holding office. I maintain that that
is just what is done in this case. I know it is said sometimes that the action
of the iMormons in practicing polygamy is an immorality, that there is no re-
ligion in it, and that we do not interfere with the constitutional rights of a
Mormon when we prescribe the test that he shall not hold office if he be-
lieves in the lawfulness of polygamy. What is a religious test? To ascer-
tain that it is necessary to inquire what is religion? Webster defines
it thus:
" 1. The recognition of (Jod as an object of worship, love, and obedience ;
right feelings toward God as rightly apprehended ; piety.
"2. Any system of faitli and worship ; as, the religiun ol the Turks, of
Hindoos, of Christians; true and false relifjion. "
That is tlie definition of Webster, and 1 still think he is pretty good
authority. I repeat it :
" Any system of faith and worship; as, the religion of the Turks, of Hin-
doos, of christians ; true and false religion. "
That is Webster's definition of religion. Then, a religious test would be
a test pertaining to religion as defined, or a law prescribing that a person
should not hold office because he professed or practiced a particular religion,
no matter whether we believe it to be a true or a false religion. According to
Webster, it would be a violation of the Constitution if you say that a man
shall not hold office because he believes and practices the Turkish relit;ion,
or the Hindoo religion, (for he mentions both,) or the Christian religinn.
Mr. Edmunds. Would the senator really object to a law, su]>posiiig it
were not unconstitutional, (which is another question,) which said that no,
man should be entitled to participate in" the government of the State of
Georgia that was in the practice of having all his f.itlier's wives, one or more,
burned, Hindoo fashion, when his father died? There is some difference
between facts and faith in the minds of most people, 1 submit to my friend,
and it comes down (to state the point) to this essential distinction, that all
APPENDIX. 685
political society has recognized between regulating political rights — and I
ina>' say, for that mutter, civil rights in a large degree, but I net-d not go in-
to that now — depending upon certain conditions of fact, as the supreme
court of the United States decided in the Reynolds case on this pretense of
its being a religious faith to have four or five wive*, and therefore you could
not interfere with it. It conies down to a fact. There are many men in the
State of Vermont wlio believe that they have an inherent right to sell liquor
although it is prohibited, that it is a natural right tliat belongs to every man.
The State snys : "If you do that thing, you cumot do certain other things."
Is it possible that my friend from Georgia really means to maintain the
proposition that in a Republican country, a government of the people, it does
not belong to a majority of the people to say that certain acts, certain con-
ditions of bodily existence, shall not be made the test of participating in the
government of that State V This is the point. You may call it religion or
what you will.
Mr. Brown. The senator might have saved himself a discourse of some
length, which must be printed in my speech, if he had noticed a little more
carefully what I was saying, or if he had waited till I was through on that
point. I do not deny the right of a State to punish any sort of immorality.
Mr. Edmunds. 1 aiH not speaking of punishment ; I am talking about po-
litical rights.
Mr. Brown. I will answer the question if you will keep quiet only a short
time.
Mr. Edmunds. I will keep quiet entirely.
Mr. Brown. I do not ask that; but when I am replying to the senator's
long questions I pre'er to be heard myself. I do not deny the power of the
state to inflict punishment for immorality. I am willing to vote for a law
to punish persons, not for what they have done in the past when there was
no law prohibiting such acts, but what they may do in the future that is
criminal, in the Territoiy of Utah or any other 'Jerritory. 1 believe that
bigamy or the double wife system, if I may so term it, is immoral ; and I am
therefore willing to inflict penalties, or to vote for a law that does inflict them
upon those who are legally convicted of that oifense, committed after the
passage of a law prohibiting it. But I am not willing to put it in the hands
of returning boards, to drive from the polls in Utah every man who believes
tltat he or any other man has a right to practice polvgnmy, if he does not
practice it. I would only consent to punish him for his criminal conduct, not
for his belief or his faith or his religious opinions.
Again, as to the instance put by the senator from Vermont in my State, if
it were possible for there to be such an instance tliere ; if any man there be-
lieved it was right to burn his father's wives — we do not allow them to have
but one wife there — upon the funeral pile I woidd inflict penalties upon him
for practicing it : but if he really believes it is riglit I have no right to exclude
him from holding office because he says he believes it.
JNIr. Edmunds. >o say I ; so say we all.
Mr. Brown. Then it turns out that there would have been but little rear
son for the interruption by the senator, had he heard me through.
Mr. Edmunds. I think it turns out that there was.
Mr. Brown. Th;it is a difference of opinion.
Mr. p]dmunds. That is liberal.
Mr. Brown. Then I hope you are content. I say you have aright to pun-
ish a Alormon for adultery or fornication or bigamy. I make no issue with
you there. But you have no right to punish him for it until yotihave legally
convicted him of the crime; the court having a right to inflict the penalty
by the proper officer.-*, aud I shall always approve it when so done ; but I am
686 APPENDIX.
not ready to place a whole community under the ban because a few persons
there practice this immoral habit. I am informed that tiiere are compara-
tively few Mormons who have more than one wife, yet ahnost the entire
Mormon population believe it is legal for a man to have a plurality of wives.
Let us be careful that we do not establish precedents that may lead to the
destruction of freedom of opinion, and the subversion of constitutional
liberty, and religious toleration in this country.
When we come down to this matter of persecution or prosecution for
opinion's sake and go beyond punishment for crime committed, we tread
upon very dangerous ground. If we look back over the history of the past
we have abundant evidence to justify this assertion. The time was when
the Catholic Church tolerated no dissenters and punished in an exemplary
manner those who denied the infallibility of the Pope and the authority of
the church. That day has passed, at least it is so in this country, and to
their honor be it said, to tlie Catholics and Baptists of the United fetates the
glory is due of having been the first two denominations — the Baptists a little
in the lead — to establish on this continent full, unqualitied religious freedom.
But even then diflerences of opinion could not be tolerated by those in
power, and the early settlers of New England, who held another faith, perse-
cuted both Baptists and Catholics alike lor dis^■enting from their view. Such
is the weakness of human nature ; such is the danger of persecutiou for
opinion's sake.
Mr. Edmunds. I wish you would leave out the State of Vermont when
you speak of Xew England, because it is not true as to it, but the reverse.
Mr. Brown. I said New England, and I was right; but I am very willing
to except the State of Vermont, as requested by the senator. No instance
at this time occurs to me in relation to that State. I believe the senator is
right in asking that she be exempted. I wish I could say as much lor ail
the other States of New England, and for all the States of the world. I am
not mentioning this to be offensive to New England, but I mention it to
warn senators of the dangers of a spirit of religious persecution, and to ask
them also to reflect on the danger of political persecution for opinion's sake.
The dominant church in New England at the early settlement persecuted
the Catholics and the Baptists. The historian saj's they made acquiescence
in their own church practices and beliefs a test of citizenship. (J Elliott's
History of New England, page 20G.) The Quakers ^\el•e whipped at the
cart tail from town to town, because they practiced their own religious
opinions. Men and women were hung because they were convicted bj New
England tribunals of being witches. The Baptists were taxed for a long
period to support the clergy of the established denomination there; and
Roger Williams, their great leader, was banislied from Massachusetts on
account of his religious opinions. Quakers were driven out of New England
under a severe penalty if they returned. And one unfortunate man was
banished under penalty of death if he returned, for asserting that he was
free from original sin, and had not committed a sin in six momhs. This
was the intolerance in a past century.
I have referred to the Catholics. Coming down still Later within the
present century, within the present half century, it has not been filty years
ago that the Catholic Church established at Charlestown, in Massachusetts,
un Ursuline convent or college, and it was so offensive to the good people of
that State that a mob was raised to burn it, and it was burnt under circum-
stances of the utmost aggravation. Helpless women were driven out of it.
They fled to save their lives, and the death of one or two and the insanity
of another resulted. The attorney-general, in summing up the enortnity of
the crime to the jury, uses the following language : "A murder thus crowned
APPENDIX. 687
the perpetration of burcjlary, incendiarism, sacrilege, and plunder." (For a
full account ot this great outrage see fifth volume of Bishop England's
VYoiks.) tso strong was religious intolerance then, tiiat that good old State,
which usually punishes crimes exemplarily. was unable to punish the i)erpe-
trators of this oHensp. A former penitentiary convict was the leader of the
mob, and he was put upon trial for it. The jury acquitted him under cir-
cumstances the rno.st extraordinary, and the verdict was loudly a[iplau(led by
the populace. Handbills had been stuck upon the bridge crossing the river,
threatening the a-su>sinatiou of any one who gave information in reference
to the deed.
That was forty-e'ght years ago. If religious intolerance in this most
enlightened and iutrlliifeut State was so great forty-eight years ago as to
incite men to burn and desecrate the convents of the Catholic Church, and
the riot was peimitted with impunity, how can we trust ourselves forty-eight
years later to make indiscriminate warfare uj)on the people of any territory
of thi^se United States on account of any opinion of theirs, relij^ious or other-
wise ? It is a dangerous experiment. Enact your laws to punish crime; I
will vote with you. Make your penalties as severe as you will; when the
culprit has been convicted I will say let him sutler; but do not proscribe a
whdle comuiunity because they difler witli us in opinion.
Even in the old St^ite ot Connecticut, in the year 1834, in Windham
County, a Miss Crandall opened a school for young colored girls, and the
indignation of the people grew so high that they determined to break it up.
They went to the Legislature and got an act passed on the subject; they
carried it to the judiciary ; they resorted to every means possilde to suppress
it legally; but failing, they took their iron crowbars, alter it liad been once
set on hre, and went and broke out the windows of the house and drove tlie
teacher away, as they could not bear the outrage of a school there to teach
young colored girls. (St-e Larned's History of Windham County.)
^Ir. Hoar. How was it in Georgia?
Mr. Brown. Georgia uiay have done wrong in some instances, but I am
not now defending her wrongs; I am speaking of the danger of yielding to
these po|)ular clamors and proscribing or putting down people because we
ditfer with them iii opininn. Connecticut would not now do what she then
did. She now sstaiids by the rights of colored people, and, to their honor be
it said, 1 believe both her senators favor appropriations to educate the colored
people everywhere in the United States. I thank tlieui for it; it is right;
but I mention the instance not to reflect on the people of Connecticut, but
to show the danger of yielding to popular clamor, where any institution does
not meet with popular favor.
Ill 1855 this country was convulsed with one of the bitterest political cata-
paigiis we have ever had, the corner-stone of the platform of one of the
political parties being that Catholics should not hold office, and proscribing
them for opinion's sake. It was said that the Catholic believed in the iufal-
libdity of the Tope, and believing tiiis he could not be a true citizen of any
civil goveriiuient; that liis primary allegiance was due to the Pope, and
theretore he could not be trusted with office. This erroneous opinion found
followers by the thousands and hundreds of thousands in the United States
at that time.
Let me give another illustration. It is only within the last few years, if
I am correctly iufuriued, that the constitution of Xew Hampshire permits a
Catliolic to be a member of the Legislature of that State.
Air. Blair. I shouM like to correct the s-enator to a certain extent in
regard to a popular impression that Catholics have not been permitted to
hold office in the State of New Hampshire until a very recent alteration in
688 APPENDIX.
the constitution. The matter of the religious test did curvire nominally in
our constitution until it.s last change, some tiiree years since ; but as a matter
of fact the provision was obsolete. I think it must have been obsolete for
the last iialf century. Nearly twenty years ago 1 myself sat side by side in
the Li'gislature of New Hampshire with an h\A\ Catholic wlio represented
the city of Manchester. Jt was an obsolete provision ; and our pei>i>Ie, who
have been very conservative in regard to holding conventions for tlie purpose
of altering tlieir fundamental law, allowed it to remain, knowing tliai it was
not acted upon, until at last it becoming necessary to modify the constitution
in other particulars, tliis provision was changed witli the rest.
Mr. Brown. The senator was right when lie asked to correct me to a
"certain extent" only. According to his own statement he sat in the Legis-
lature of his own State liy the side of a Catholic, wlio sat there in open vio-
lation of the constituiion of New Hampshire.
1 have no disposition to misrepresent New Hampshire, but the senator's
statement does not u)uch better the case. He admiis that until three years
ago if a Catholic occupied a seat in the Legislature of New Hampshire he
had to do it in violation of the constitution of New Hampshire, which I pre-
sume each member was sworn to support. Popular oiMnion did not enforce
the constitution, the senator says, but still the constitution forbade that a
Catliolic be a member. I am glad it does not now forbid it.
While 1 think we are becoming more liberal as members of the different
churches, and as citizens of States, I fear yet to trust too much to excited
legislation under the lash of popular clamor.
A few years ago in my own State we all .stood by slavery. No one then
questioned that it was light. That the ins^titution may in some ca.ses have
been abused, as every institution is abused, cannot be denied; but it was as
little abused as any other could be. Slavery has been abolished : none of us
desire to restore it. We stand now by tlie liberty and the rights of the
former slave. Still there is an incident that I cannot help remembering
during that transition stage. After the end of the war the reconstruction
measLires were passed. 1 had then a little taste of the rule that we now pro-
pose to apply to Utah. I stood by the polls, disfranchised and not permitted
to vote, while my former slaves, emancipated, walked up and deposited their
ballots. I made no issue. I accepted it. Why? Because 1 had no power
to do anything; and 1 held that Georgia had seceded from the Union, and
having seceded, and having been conquered, the conquering power had the
right to dictate the terms. But the Mormons have not seceded from the
Union. The Federal authorities might in my case possibly have made a
religious test, and said that I should not hold any office because of my opin-
ions. If my theory was right they could, because I believed we were out of
the Union when we passed the ordinance of secession. But if their theory
was correct, they had no right to prescribe such a religious test. I did not,
however, make any point about the political test, because I believed we were
obliged to acquiesce in the dictates of the conqueror. I mention these mat-
ters, not to stir up unkind feelings, but because they are part of the history,
and point the danger of legislation of the character we are i.ow proposing to
apply to Utah.
'J'liis bill proposes to apply a religious test to the Mormons. I do not
mean the jrart of it that would punish them for immorality, but in so far as
it punishes the Mormon for his religious opinions it is a religious test applied.
He believes that Joe Smith was a prophet as much as I believe that Jeremiah
was a prophet; and while 1 think he is in an egregious error, I have no right
to proscribe him because of his belief as long as he does not practice immo-
rality. And 1 have no right to do more as a legislator than to prescribe rules
APPENDIX. 689
to punish him for his immoralitips and leave him to the full enjoyment of
his religious opinions, just as I claim tiie right to enjoy my own opinions.
If we commence striking down any sect, however despised, or however un-
popular, on account of opinion's sake, we do not know how soon the fires of
Siiiithlifld may be rekindled or tiie gallows of New England for witches
again be erected, or when another Catholic convent will be burned down.
Air. Edmunds. Or another colored school burned down.
Air. lirown. Ye*, I accept tlie amendment. As the senator from Vermont
say-!, "or another colored school burned down," I trust it may not be. We
do not know how long it will be before the clamor will be raised by the
religious denominations of this country that no member of a churcli who
holds the infallibility of the Pope or the doctrine of transubstantiation should
hold ortice or vote. We do not know how long it may be before it would be
said that no member of a church who believes in close communion and
baptism by immersion as the oply mode should vote or hold othce in this
country. You are treading on dangerous ground when you open this flood-
gate anew. We have passed the period where there is for the present any
clamor against any particular sect except as against the Mormons ; but it
seems there must be some periodical outcry against some denomination.
Popular vengeance is now turned against the Mormons. When we are done
with them I know not who wdl next be considered the proper subject of it.
Mr. President. I believe I have made about all the remarks that I care to
make on this subject. In conclusion, I have to state that I cannot vote for
the bill in its present shape. I cannot vote for any bill that will leave it
•with any Returniuir Board in Utah, with the pretext that they will have in
this case, to proscribe any class of people there on account of their political
or religi(Mis opinions. I am ready to vote for any bill that is necessary to
punish the people of that Territory or any other for the practice of immoral-
ity, leaving it to the courts to decide whether they are guilty or not.
I therefore insi.-t ujion the amendment that I have already intioduced. I
was not in at the moment when the senator from IMissouri [Mr. Vest]
offered his amendment. I wish to offer two amendments more, liefore I
take my seat I will read them for information. In section 7 —
Air. Edmunds. You mean section 7 as it is in the print?
Air. Brown. Yes, sir, as it is in print.
Mr. P^dmunds. That would be now section 8.
Air. Brown. In section 7 [8]. line 1, after the word "bigamist," I shall
move to insert the words "who has been legally convicted of practicing the
same; " and after tlie word "woman" in line 2 to insert "and legally con-
victed of tlie same;" and after the word "section " in line 4 to insert "who
has been legally convicted;" so that tlmt part of the section would read :
"That no polygamist, bigamist, who has been legally convicted of prac-
ticing the same, or any person cohabiting with more than one woman, and
legally convicted of the same, and no woman cohabiting with any of the
persons described as aforesaid in this section, who has been legally convicted,
in any Territory," &c.
AVith those amendments, and one other which I shall prepare, much of the
objection that I have to the bill would be removed, though I think tiiere are
other very serious objections to it.
Upon a vote by yeas and nays Mr. Brown's amendment making it the
duty of the President to appoint three of one party and two ot the other, so
as to give the Democrats two members of the board of five, was adopted by
a majority of 2.
Air. Brown then offered the following amendment, which was adopted:
**Prooidei/, That said board of five persons shall not exclude anv person,
44
690 APPENDIX.
otherwise eligible to vote, from the polls on account of any opinion such
person may entertain on tlie subject of bigamy or poly^'amy; nor shall they
refuse to count any such vote on account of the opinion of the person casting
it on the subject of bigamy and polygamy."
Speech of Hox. Joseph E. Brown, of Georgia, Delivered in the
Senate of the United States, March 6, 1882, on Bill (S. No.
71) to Enforce Treaty Stipulations Relating to Chinese. —
The Question, Does the Bill Violate our Solemn Obliga-
tions UNDER THE TREATY, DiSCUSSED. ThE PrOBABLE CONSE-
QUENCES OF SUCH Violation in Connection with our Commerce
AND Missionary Operations in China, etc., considered.
Mr. Brown said :
Mr. President : The problem that the senate now has to deal with is a
very grave one. The importation of Chinese laborers into this country with-
out limitation or restriction may promise much misfortune and evil in the
future; I think it wise to restrict that importation ; but while we restrict it,
we should remember that it is the duty of tlie American Senate and the
American Government to keep faith with every people and every govern-
ment upon the face of the earth.
Some years since, we ratified what was known as the Burlingame treaty
with China. That treaty caused very friendly relations to be established be-
tween the two governments, and in some measure between the peoples of the
two governments. The result of that treaty and those friendly relations w-as
a very rapid increase and extension of the commerce of this country with
China. That commerce is most important to the people of the United
States. It has long been the complaint of other nations that the Chinese
Government did not permit intercourse with foreign powers. We have
reached a period when that rule has been relaxed in China, and inhere is a
vast trade there of immense value, whose fruits are to be gathered by com-
mercial powers. Great Britain at present has much the better part of that
trade. As a commercial power we are striving to compete with Great
Britain and to build up our own trade there as much as possible.
In this state of the case it seems to me to be a most unfortunate time for
us to do injustice to the people of China or to otlend that government un-
necessarily. Take, for instance, our manufacturing classes, and there is a
wide field open there for the sale of their productions. I recollect not long
since, in a conversation with one of the admirals of our navy, he gave me a
very interesting account of a period of time spent by him in China. He
spoke of the inmiensity of the future commerce of that country, of the
quality of the cloths with which the Chinese are clad, and the point struck
me that it was of very great importance to my section of the country that we
should maintain friendly relations with the Chinese; because if we seek in
the South to build up our infant manufacturing establisl raents of cotton,
woolen, etc., and especially cotton, there is no market in the world so invit-
ing to us fur the class of goods we make as the market of Ciiina. It is said
that the cloths of the Southern mills, where we have plenty of cotton, where
the cloth is made honestly of good material and sent to China, have been
the most popular there of any brands of cloth, because they are the best and
the most durable. Our infant manufacturing establishments are not in con-
dition to compete successfully with those of the world elsewhere in the pro-
duction of the finer fabrics ; and as we make a particular kind of cloth, or a
APPENDIX. 691
particular production of our looms, that is peculiarly adapted to that trade
or to the demauds of that empire witii its iranieuse numbers of people, it
would be foolishness on our part to seek wantonly to offend those people,
and destroy our itiflueiice and our commerce among them. Therefore there
are substantial commercial reasons why we should deal justly and fairly and
kindly and honestly by them.
These reasous may not be sufficient to justify us of the South in encourag-
ing the unlimited importation of Chinamen to the detriment of other sections
of the Union who protest against it. The people of the United States hav-
ing become dissatisfied with the unbounded liberty of immigration into this
country that was given by the Burlingarae treaty, sought to get rid of it.
AVe sent our plenipotentiaries to China to negotiate for a modification of the
treaty. And he who reails the discussions between our plenipotentiaries and
tlie Chinese Government will find that we were not more than a match for
them in diplomacy. Whatever you may say of them, of their manners, their
customs, their habits, you cannot say that they are not a cultivated people,
to a great extent, and you cannot say that their statesmen do not have abil-
ity, and you cannot say that they do not comprehend these great questions.
The negotiations referred to abundantly attest the fact of their ability,
eagacity, and statesmanship, or else they show that we were very much
wanting in these high qualities. At any rate, we cannot truthfully claim
that we got the better of the correspondence.
But, without tracing the history of that negotiation, we reached the point
where we concluded a treaty that has been ratified by that government and
by our Government on this very question. Xow, I want to refer to the pro-
visions of that treaty, and contrast them for a few moments with this bill,
and see whether we are in good faith carrying out the provisions of the
treaty. Are we doing our duty, and are we before the civilized world acting
in honest good faith toward Ciiina? Are we observing our treaty stipula-
tions? Or are we in substance and spirit, if not in letter, unblushingly
violaiing those solemn guaranties? If we are violating the compact, then
we ought to modify this bill and keep within the provisions of the contract
entered into between the high contracting parties, composed of the repre-
sentatives of 4U0,000,U00 Chinese and 50,0UU,U00 Americans.
If the treaty will not permit the passage of such a bill as we desire to
pa.ss, then in good faith we should suspend action till we negotiate for a
modification of that treaty, and not resort to an open, unjustifiable violation
of it, or to a violation of the very spirit and essence of it. I propose, Mr.
President, to read the four sections of that treaty. They are as follows :
Article I. — Whenever in the opinion of the Government of the United States the
coining ol Cliinese laborers to the United States, or their residences therein, affects or
threatens to affect tlie interests of that country, or to endanger tlie good order of the
said country or of any locality within the territory thereof, the Government of China
agrees that the Government of the United States may regulate, limit, or suspend such
coining or residence, but may not absolutely prohibit it. The limitation or suspen-
sion shall be reasonable, and shall apply only to Chinese who may go to the United
States as laborers, other classes not being included in the limitations. Legislatiou
taken in regard to Chinese laborers will be of such a character only as is necessary to
enforce the regulation, limitation, or suspension of immigration, and immigrants
shall not be subject to personal maltreatment or abuse.
Article II. — Chinese subjects, whether proceeding to the United States as teach-
ers, students, merchants, or irom curiosity, together with their body and household
servant-;, and Chinese laborers, who are now in the United States, sliall be allowed to
go and eome of their own free will and accord, and shall be accorded all the rights,
privileges, immunities, and exemptions which are accorded to the citizens and sub-
jects of the most favored nations.
Abticle III.— If Chinese laborers, or Chinese of any other class, now either per-
G92 APPENDIX.
raanently or temporarily residing in the territory of the United States, meet with ill
treatment at the hands of any otlier persons, the Government of the United States
will exert all its power to devise measures for their protection and to secure to them
the same rights, privileges, immunities, and exemptions as may be enjoyed by the
citizens or subjects of the most favored nation, and to which they are entitled by
treaty.
Article IV. — The high contracting powers having agreed upon the foregoing
articles, whenever the Government of the United States shall adopt legislative
measures in accordance therewith, such measures will be communicated to the Gov-
ernment of China. If the measures as enacted are found to work hardships upon the
subjects of China the Chinese minister at Washington may bring the matter to the
notice of the Secretary of State of the United States, who will consider the -subject
with him; and the Chinese foreign otKce may also bring the matter to the notice of
the United States minister at Peking and consider the subject with him, to the end
that mutual and unqualified benefit may result.
These are the provisions of the treaty. Does tliis bill propose in honest
good faitli to carry them outV We have reserved the rirrht to legulate, limit,
or suspend the coming of Chinese laborers, but the treaty is express and
positive in its provisions that we shall not absolutely prohibit it, and tiiat our
legislation on this subject siiall be reasonable. Now, does any senator iiere
really believe when we were negotiating this treaty vvitli the Emperor of
China, that our representatives held out to him any such idea as that our
first step in limitation and suspension would be an absolute inhibition, or
proliibition of the importation of a single Cliinese laborer for twenty years
under severe legal penalties? Do you believe, senators, that tlie Cliinese
Government would have agreed to such a treaty if they had understood that
this was our interpretation of it? Would they have ratified it? 1 think no
senator in this Chamber can believe they would. Let it be borne in mind
that this is the starting point on our part in the execution of the treaty. In
carrying out the power of suspension of the coming of Chinese lahoreis tliat
under certain circumstances as represented to them by our pleni[)otentiaries
might become necessary on the part of tliis Government, the fiist sleji is an
absolute prohibition for twenty years, with the heaviest penalties if a single
one known as a laborer comes in within that period. It would be very
natural for the Chinese Government to conclude that if this is the com-
mencement in the execution of the treaty, they may look at the end of twenty
years for a further prohibition for half a century, or ninety-nine years
probably. No, Mr. President, they will not misunderstand it. That govern-
ment is intelligent enough to know tiiat this is not carrying out in good faith
the provi.-ions of the treaty. It may be that we can justify it according to
the letter, but it is a mere sticking in the bark ; it is not in accordance with
the spirit or intent of the treaty.
But let it be remembered that that right of suspension, regulation, or lim-
itation applies under the treaty only to Cliinese laborers, and it is jirovided
expressly in the treaty that it does not include any other class of Cl.iiiese
except laborers. Now what Us to the other classes of Cliinese ? We ex-
pressly stipulate and bind ourselves that they may go and come of t' eir own
free will and accord, and that they shall be accorded al' the r ghts, privi-
leges, immunities, and exemptions which are accorded to citizens and sub-
jects of the most favored nation. How do we projiose to carry out that
provision of the treaty? We propose to enact a law that permits no one of
them to come until he has first obtained the consent of the Government of
China. 'J'liat government has stipulated with us that its subjects not
laborers sIimH go and come of their own free will and accord. We put the
obstacle in the way that they shiill go to the expense and trouble of getting
the consent of their government in each individual case, before they shall
come, aud they shall then get a passport from the Government of China, and
APPENDIX. 693
that passport must be viseed by the United States diplomatic agent or con-
sular agent in China, before they can go on board a vessel to start for the
United States.
Supposing the Chinaman seeking to come is a teacher or a student, it is
expressly stipulated that he shall go and come of his own free will and ac-
cord, with all the exemptions, immunities, and privileges of a citizen or sub-
ject of the most favored nation. But this bill says he shall neitiier go nor
come of his own free will and accord ; he shall not start here until he has
obtained a passport from his own government, and had it properly vise'ed by
our repiesentntive there. Then he can board the ship cominj^ to our shores.
When he readies here the bill provide-s that the master of tlie ship shall not
land until he has exhibited to the custom-house officer the list of the China-
men on board, with a description of each. The custom-house officer must
then go on board and examine each, and compare him with his passport, so
as to establish his identity, and if he has lost his passport he cannot land.
Then when he has landed he must be ready at all times to exhibit his pass-
port to the proper authorities of the United States whenever legally de-
manded. If he is robbed of it or loses it, his failure to exhibit it subjects
him to fine and imprisonment. The Secretary of the Treasury has then to
open books, and every Chinaman in this country must be registered in those
books. Tlien a certificate must be given each with a most accurate descrip-
tion of his person. Let me read tliat description :
" Entry shall be made in such books of the name of every such Chinese, and
his proper signature, his place of birth, (giving town or district,) date of
birth, last place of residence before coming to the United States, place of
residence in the United States, if any, names and residences of his parents,
if any, Hate and place of arrival in the United States, employment or busi-
ness, height, and physical marks or peculiarities by which ne may be identi-
fied. Every applicant for registration shall make oath to the facts stated in
his registry, wiiich oath shall be recorded in the book of registry. Collec-
tors of customs and their deputies shall have power to administer and certify
to all oaths under this act."
Bear in mind that the description must be made in the book opened by
the secretary of the treasury, and it must be signed by the Chinese with his
own signature. If he be in tiie condition of a very large number of the people
of this country, not able to write his own name, though he may not come here
as a laborer, and may be a man of wealth and come from curiosity, he
would not comply with the law, because his own pioper signature would not
be upon the descriptive list made by him in the custom-house or upon his pass-
port.
We set up a pretty high standard for the Cliinaman. W"e say he must
come prepared to write his own name, for that is what I understand by a
man's own proper signature, which must be upon his passport, and upon
the books in the custom-house, before he can stay here, and if he fails to
comply with the law in any of these particulars, and he is found at large in
the United States, he may be taken up and fined or imprisoned. Suppose
after he lands he loses his passport; with great prejudice against himself
and his race, unaccustomed to our language, our forms, and our tribunals,
if he is taken up, how will he protect himself? He cannot do it, and he
will be thrown into jail and fined. Tliis would seem to be in violation of that
provision of the treaty which says he may go and come of his own free will
and accord. This bill says :
"And any Cliinese who shall knowingly come into the United State-- on-
trary to the provisions of this act shall be deemed guilty of a mis^' \or,
^ and on conviction thereof shall be punished by a fine not excea y the quest',or
694 APPENDIX.
by imprisonment not exceeding one year, or both said punishments, in the
discretion of the court."
If he is a teacher or a merchant or a Chinaman coming here from curiosity,
he lias a perfect right under this treaty to go and come at his own free will
and accord. But if he be one of those cliaracters, and he has not complied
with everything prescribed in reference to pnssport, registration, descriptive
list, and all that is set forth in this long ponderous bill and its numerous
sections, he is to be seized and thrown into prison and fined, and remain
there till he pay the fine ; and that is what we call extending to him the
same rights, privileges, immunities, and exemptions which are accorded to
citizens and subjects of the most favored nation !
Do you, I ask, s-enators, by your law extend such denial of rights and
privileges to the subjects even of the most unfavoied nations? Do you ex-
tend such treatment to the subjects of any other nation ? Is there any other
nation on the globe whose subjects are compelled to comply with all the.-e
provisions before they can enter an American port? Is there any other
nation on the globe whose subjects can be seized, tried, fined, and impris-
oned for the non-cc)mpliance with provisions like those contained in this bill?
If there is an instance I am not aware of it; and I ask any senator favoring
this bill to point it out. Where is the law on our statute book that compels
the subjects of Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, or of any power in
South America, or of any African chief in the darkest jungles of that be-
nighted land to comply with any such terms under any such penalties before
he can enter a port of the United States?
Mr. Farley. In the first place there is no treaty between the United
States Government and those governn)ents the .senator mentions that such
legislation may be had; but in this case there is a solemn treaty between
the two governments, China and the United States, that such legislation
may he had as will suspend the further immigration of that class of people,
but not absolutely prohibit it.
Mr. Brown. I am sorry to have to take issue with my friend from Califor-
nia, but his statement is not correct.
^Ir. Farley. It is very plain.
Mr. Brown. But it is not true. The treaty applies simply to laborers,
and says distinctly it shall apply to no other class. I am talking about
teachers and merchants and students, and tho.-!e coining from curiosity, wlio
are mentioned in the treaty, wliich expressly excepts them from its provis-
ions. I say there is no such provision in the treaty as the senator refers to.
Mr. Farley. There is a provision in reference to laborers.
Mr. Brown. There is a provision in reference to laborers the senator say.s.
I am not controverting that; I was not talking about tiiat. I am talking
about the provisions of the bill which would apply to other classes, where
the treaty says distinctly and expressly that tliey are not included iu its
limitations.
I repeat, there is no such legislation unfavorable to the subjects of any
other power on earth as we propose to apply to the subjects of Cliina who
are not laborers, and who are expressly jirotected by the treaty, and of
whom it is said, in the treaty to which we have solemnly pledged our faith
before the world, that they shall go and come of their own free will and
accord. If tliis bill passes they cannot come into tiie territory of this
Government witliout complying with all these cumbersome and burdensome
provisions that I have mentioned. If the master of a ship brings one in,
in accordance with the treaty, of his own free will and accord, without a
coii'Stav-^^cg Qf these provisions, he is liable to be punished, and his ship is
^Q le conseui, „^jfj forfeited. That is the privilege we propose to extend to
)me, and the^ * " ^ ^
APPENDIX. 695
the Cliinaman, of going and coming at his own free will and accord, with
all the rijihts, privileges, and immunities of the subjects or citizens of
the most favored nation ! That is the kind of faith we propose to keep.
Mr. Miller, of California. Will the senator allow me to interrupt him ?
Mr. Brown. Yes, sir.
Mr. Miller, of California, Does the senator think it would be within the
treaty for a teacher or merchant belonging to the permitted class to show that
he was one of the permitted class, to show that he was a teacher ? In other
words, would it conflict with the treaty if we required that he should identify
himself? If not this, what other plan can be adopted by which he may be
identified as belonging to the permitted class? The provisions of the bill
are merely for the purpose of identification. They are in the interest of the
classes enumerated who are permitted to come. If there were no provision
of this sort in tlie bill, it would be left to the United States authorities to
decide whether they were of the permitted classes or not. The bill leaves
it for the Chinese Government to decide, and those persons whom the Chinese
Government say are mercliants or traders or teachers, and so on, and are
not laborers, are permitted to come when they present the evidence that the
Chinese Government gives them of that character.
Mr. Brown. The provisions of the bill look more to prohibition than
identification. No unprejudiced mind can read it without being struck with
its harshness. It breathes an unfriendly spirit from the enacting clause to
the end of its last section. It violates, without the blush of shame, the ex-
press and undeniable provisions of a solemn treaty.
There is nothing in the treaty that requires of any Chinaman of the classes
about wliich I have been speaking to bring any certificate of identification.
It is expressly provided in the treaty that it shall .apply to no other class
except laborers. All other classes stand just where they did before the
treaty as to their right to come, with the superadded provision in the treatv
itself that they may go and come of their own free will and accord, with
the rights, privileges, and immunities of citizens or subjects of the most
favored nation. Do you propose any stringent legislation of this character
for the identification of an Irishman or a German? The subjects of China
who are not laborers are placed by treaty in exactly the same position of the
Irishman or the German.
Mr. Miller, of California. If the senator will allow me, the treaty has an
object in it. The object is to prevent the coming of laborers. There has to
be some mode of deciding who are laborers and who are not laborers, who
are teachers and who are not teachers ; and that is what the treaty is for.
Mr. Brown. Yes, the treaty has an object, and so has this bill. The
(fbject of the bill is to throw such obstacles in the way as will, without regard
to the treaty, greatly limit, if it does not prevent, all Chinese from coming to
this country.
The senator stated when he was last up that that was left to the Chinese
government. I do not think the senator will be quite content to leave it
there. If you leave it for them to decide, they may give passports indiscrimi-
nately to everybody who wants to come. Is that the test you are willing to
apply in determining whether they are laborers ? If you make the Chinese
government the judge, you must be bound by their judgment, and then you
have no right to complain of anybody who comes, but you must admit that
all who come under a passport with registration, etc., are entitled under the
treaty to come.
Mr. Miller, of California. Unless it is clearly shown that it was done in
fraud of the treaty with the Chine.se government.
Mr. Brown. Then what sort of tribunal would you have to try the question
of fraud?
696 APPENDIX.
Mr. Miller, of California. The passports would be vi.seed by our own con-
sul or by our diplomatic representative in China. We would leave it lo that
authority.
I\Ir. JJrown. I reply to the senator that our representative tliere is not sup-
posed to know all the subjects of China, whether they are of the labeling class
or to what class they belong.
Mr, ]\Iiller, of California. They would have the power to investigate.
Mr. Brown. We have made no provi>i()n in the treaty fur any >ucii inves-
tigation on their part there. We have agreed that all Chinese except laborers
may go and come of their own free will.
Mr. iloar. Will the senator from Georgia allow me to make a suggestion
in connection with what he is saying?
Mr. Brown. Yes, sir; 1 have no objection, though I wish to conclude as
soon as possible.
Mr. Hoar. I thought it might perhaps call attention to the point the sena-
tor was making, if he wid pernnt me. or 1 will make it afterward.
Mr. Brown. Certainly; I yield to any senator who wishe.s to interrupt me.
Mr. Hoar. The point which the senator from (ieorgia is tnaking is very
strongly confirmed by the fact that the bill as originally drawn undertook to
enforce the treaty to that extent. The first section of the original bill, as
the senator will tind on the paper which he has before him, provides —
" That all subjects or citizens of China who are students coming to the
United States for purposes of education, merchants or traders engaged in
lawful commerce, travellers, etc., may lawfully enter, remain in, or pass
through the United States upon being iilentified as hereinafter provided."
That was the original proposition, which was rejected by the Comniiltee on
Foreign Relations, and instead of that comes the present bill simply prohibit-
ing and punishing certain persons who are not found to be so and so, not
repeating the authority which the treaty gives them. It shows ihat it was
the object of the framers of the bill to make a much greater difficulty.
Mr. 'I'eller. The framers of the bill or the committee?
Mr. Iloar. Those who reported the bill finally propose the amendment.
Mr. Teller. The committee.
Mr. Hoar. The senator from Georgia will excuse me for the interruption.
Mr. Brown. There is no provision in the treaty requiring the Emperor of
China to decide whether a subject of his leaving the shores of China for this
country is a laborer, or whether he belongs to any other class. 'J here is no
provision in tfie treaty that provides for our consul or diplomatic representa-
tive in China determining that question.
!Mr. Miller, of California. Is there any hardship that it shall be left to him
to decide ?
Mr. Brown. Yes; it would be a very great hard-hip. If our representa-
tive were acting there under the prejudice that most people here act under,
it would be a one-sided tribunal to try the case.
Mr. Miller, of California. 1 am speaking of the Chinese government. I
ask is it a hardship on the Chinese government to decide?
IVIr. Brown. When the Chinese government has provided by treaty tliat
its subjects i-hall come and go at their pleasure, you liave no right to ask it
of the Chinese government. Nor have you a right to in^pose the bin den
on a Chinese wishing to come here, of going a thousand miles to I'ekin to get
a passport.
Mv. Teller. I should like to make an inquiry of the senator, if he will
allow me?
Mr. Brown. I am willing to be interrupted by all senators.
Mr. Teller. That is not the proper statement. They have said that a cer-
APPENDIX. 697
tain class should not come here if we object to them. Is it unreasonable that
•we should designate tlie class when we h-ave it to them to make prima facie
evidence of it? Certainly it is very liberal, it seems to me.
Mr. Brown. The senators all make the point that the treaty authorizes us
to regulate, limit, and suspend the cf)niing of laborers. 1 am nut discussing
that part of the snhject. I am speaking of those who ax'e not hiborers.
Mr. Miller, of California. How will you determine that tliey are not
laborers.
iVIr. Brown. You will probably determine that best when they get here.
If they come here, and it turns out that they are simply laborers, and you
can establish that point and show that ihey came in violation of law and of
the treaty, you can do as you propose in this bill to do by any of them who
do not bring a passport and go through the long routine of registration and
certific'ites. You can provide a way to have them sent out of tlie country;
but you have no rigiit under the treaty, to prevent the classes who have a
riglit to come from coming because some other classes are prohibited from
cominiT.
Take this instance: Suppose a Chinese teacher and students are in the re-
public of Mexico to-day. They are subjects of th? Government of China,
and they desire to come into the United States. They are in sii;ht of our
boundary line. Under this act, if it is passed, although the treaty says they
may come and go at pleasure, they must first go home to China and get a
passport and sad back again before they can enter our limits, though the
treaty says there shall be no such restriction upon them. Is that keeping
faith with the Gi>vernment of China. Is there a senator here who can say
that that is within the spirit and meaning of this treaty ? I apprehend not
— not one.
Have you ever heard of an instance where an Irishman or a German, be-
fore he could come to this country, must get a passport at home, bring it
here and have it registered, carry it with him everywhere he goes, show it to
our officers when required, present it if he wants to go back upon a visit to
the old country again, and bring it again when he returns? Have they ever
been cumbered with any such provision as this? Xever in any case. No;
they are subjects of favored nations; they are among the most favored na-
tions; and when the Irishman an<l German come here they soon have the
ballot in their hands, and then they are very good people, and politicians and
statesmen and everybody respects them; but the Chinaman comes in and we
raise the clamor that he must not enter till he has been cumbered with all
these hindrances, although we have expressly pledged our faith to China that
he shall be put upon the same terms and have the same exemptions, immu-
nities, and privileges which- the Irishman or the German, in the case sup-
posed has, or which anybody else has.
We have always claimed the right for the citizens and subjects of other
nations to come to this country and find homes in our vast territory, to be
naturalized and made citizens ; and when so naturalized we have claimed
that they are absolved from further allegiance to the country of their nativ-
ity. Great Britain denied this principle in 1812 and claimed the right to
board our ships on the ocean, to look after her subjects, or those who had
been such and were then in our service. We denied her right, and fought
the war of 1812 in vindication of the right of expatriation by the subjects of
any government who might choose to remove to and become citizens of this
country. While I do not think it would be wise to naturalize many Chinese
ami make them citizens, under all the circumstances, I see unreason why we
should not stand by the doctrine of the right of expatriation at least to the
extent of protecting all the rights possessed by Chinese subjects under the
698 APPENDIX.
treatrv' of 1881. They do not claim the right of naturalization under that
treaty.
Mr. Teller. I should like to ask the senator a question. He has put a
pretty lengthy one to the entire senate. Does the senator doul't our right
to exact just such a thing as he has suggested, a passport, from every man
who comes to this country, if we see fit to exact it?
Mr. Brown. No, I do not; hut I deny your right under this treaty to re-
quire it of tlie Chinese unless you require it of other people, because you
have pledized your honor before the civilized world that you would put the
Chinaman upon tlie terms of the citizens and subjects of the most favored
nation. Whenever you put that burden on the subjects of the most favored
natinn you can without violation of your faith to China place it upon the Chi-
naman. Till then how do you justify it? I do not question your power to
api^ly it to all immigrants, but I do deny that you treat all alike a^ you
pledged yourselves to do when you ap[)ly it to the Chinaman and apply it
to nobody else on the face of the earth. I say when we do that we do not
keep faith.
I should like to hear any senator explain how it is that we keep fii^th when
"we throw all these hindrances in the way of the Chinaman who is coming,
under the provisions of this treaty, and do not put them u[)on the immigrant
from any other power or nation on earth. Do you permit them to go and
come of thf'ir own free will and accord, and do you accord to them all the
rights, privileges, immunities, and exemptions which are accorded to citizens
and subjects of the most favored nations ? Do you ? 1 would br- glad to have
an answer to that question. I have been interrupted several times, and now
I invite and court the interruption. Let anj' senator on this floor who un-
dertakes to defend this bill now rise and say that this bill does not violate
this provision of the treaty with China. Let him say, and defend his position
if he can, that tl)is bill puts Chinese not laborers on the same tei nis or in the
same position as the subjects of other favored nations. I pause for the in-
terruption. Defend the position if you can.
Mr. Farley. How would you discriminate between them unless there was
a provision of that sort? You might as well undertake to discrimuuite be-
tween the flies on a bee-gum on a summer's day. You cannot do it unless
you have a provision of that soit.
Mr. Hrnwn. That is no answer. It is simply saying that to identify a
person prohibited hy the treaty, you must, from necessity, place a burden on
a person not prohibited, and from which the treaty expressly exempts him,
till you have placed it on the subjects of the most favored nations; which
you do not pretend has been done, and which you do not propose to do. The
reason you give may be a very good one in favor of an application to the
Emperor of China for a modification of this treaty; but it is no reply to the
charge of violation of the treaty as it now exists. And 1 again assert that
no such reply will or can successfully be made.
Mr. P^arley. They have modified it once.
Mr. Brown. As the senator from California says, they have modified it
once; and we had a pretty hard time in getting the modification we have al-
ready procured to the treaty; but whi-n we have accepted such a modification
and agreed to be bound by it, and pledged our faith to it, let us in common
honesty keep faith until it is ag^iin modified.
I know we are not hound to stand by a treaty perpetually. AVe can give
notice that we will not be bound by it, and we can abrogate it, after proper
notice, without tlie consent of the Chinese Government or any other govern-
ment. But we risk the chances of war; we risk the chances of non inter-
course; we risk the destruction of our trade and commerce with China when-
APPENDIX. 699
ever we do it. If we are willing to take the risks, we have the power to
annul any treaty that we have entered into. But we must take the conse-
quences. Now what would be the consequence in this case?
^Ir. Teller. I should like to ask the senator a question. Is the senator
aware that he might go to China now, as a senator of the United States, and
that a great portion of China would be closed to him; that he could not get
into it even with a passport? When he talks about the danger of offending
that nation he should remember that they do not give to any class of our peo-
ple any such freedom there as he demands for the Chinese here.
Mr. Brown. Yes; aud I will inform the senator that the treaty between
China and this Government does not give it to us. \Ve got no sucii provision
in our favor in the treaty. That again may be a good reason why the treaty
needs modification. The Chinamen really were too shrewd for our states-
men, as it was avowed on my left in a speech this morning. They got the
better of the treaty; but is that a reason why we should refuse to keep faith
and be bound by it while it is in existence? The manly way is to seek its
modification, and if that cannot be done, abide by it while it is in force and
abrogate it when we must, and take the consequences.
There is another provision in the bill to which I want to refer. The pro-
vision of the treaty I have just mentioned applies as well to laborers who
were at the time of the ratification of the treaty in the United States as it
does to the other classes 1 have mentioned. They too are guarantied the
right to go and come at pleasure, of their own free will and accord. Do we
propose liy this legislation to carry out those provisions in good faith ? Do
we propose to have any regard to our own honor about it? No; we propose
that they .shall not go and come according to their own free will and accord,
but that they must first go and register at the custom-house before they can
go back to that country oi- go anywhere else, and when they return they must
h.ave their registration certificate or they cannot come in. If it should get
lost or be burned during their absence they could not enter. The provision
in the treaty that they may come and go of their own free will and accord
is simply violated. I can use no milder term.
It was said by the senator from Colorado [Mr. Teller} in his last remark
that an American could not go into certain parts of China even with a pass-
port. That is true; and for a long time he could go into no part of China
even with a passport. It has been a very hard struggle for the different
Christian churches of this country and Great Britain and other parts of the
world to get admission into the Chinese territory for our missionaries of the
cross. Better relations have grown up between this country and China.
They are now admitted into a large part of the empire ; they have privileges
that they could not have a few years ago. Suppose in this state of things
we now openly violate the treaty that we have made with China and exclude
her subjects from coming here as expressly provided by the treaty that they
may come, would we be astonished if an edict should go forth from the
Chinese throne that every missionary and every merchant of the United
States shall be driven from the country? Is this what the American public
seeks ? Is this what the Christian people of this country desire?
But it has been said that you cannot teach them Christianity; that they
will not assimilate with the people of this country. Treat the subjects of
any other government on earth as you have treated the Chinese in this
country, and you will find tliey will not assimilate. The people who hunt
them down, who throw every obstacle 'n the way of tlieir progress, who
enact penal laws in every manner pc ole for their punishment for offences
that you would not call crimes in others, should not expect them to assimilate.
A people thus treated could not be expected to feel inclined to assimilate.
700 APPENDIX.
I remeinber twenty odd years ago Rev. Dr. Stiles, of the Presbyterian
Churcli of t'le United States, in one of tlieir ujeneral assi-nibliea, in speaking
of tlie Africans in this country, used in substance tills remark, for 1 cannot
quote his exact language: " Tlie Southern ciuirch holds up to liie traze of
heaven and earth more converted heathen than can be found in all the mis-
sionary fields of all the churches in heathen lands." How is it that six and
a half million of Africans to-day on this continent and within the i)ounds of
this Government are civilized, and a large number of them are Cii: istlanized?
Because they were brought here into contact with civilization sind Clnis-
tianity. Our missionaries have gone to Africa, to the dark jungh s frona
whence they came, and have tried to teach Christianity there; and what has
been the success? Feeble; amounting to nothing as conipared with the
results where they were iiere among us. They were brought here as slaves,
it is true, and they were in some instances maltreated; but the relations
between the two races had become very cordial before the emancipation, and
the result was their Christlanization. Take the Chinaman by the hand and
treat him as yoii now treat the African, and you will find him assmilate
much more readily than he does with your hand turned against him, with
your legislation turned against him, with your penal statutes directed against
him, with no encouragement offered to him, but every possible discourage-
ment.
No, the Chinaman does not a'^similate. AVe do not permit him to assimi-
late. We offer him no inducement to assimilate; and yet witli all this
oppression, and I may say tyranny over him, the Christian churclies even in
California are planting the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ among them. I
do not know what the will of Providence is upon this question. It may be
that He has directed these people to our shores as He did the African people
under circumstances of hardship and oppression, that they may become
Christianized. If we cannot by proper treatment Christianize them here
when brought into constant contact and association with a Christian people,
how do you expect onr missionaries to do it in the Chinese territory wliere
everything bears the other way?
'I believe in the doctrines of Christianity. T believe when it was said,
"Go, teach all nations," that it was meant. When it was said in another
place, " Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature." I
believe it was intended ; and I believe the day will come when it will triumph
in every nation; until the millennial period will be reached; and this may
be one of the means. I know not what are the decrees of Providence upon
this subject, but certainly there is more prospect of Christianizing the Chi-
nese by profier treatment wiien they are here in contact with us than there
is by sending missionaries to their country. When we violate faith with the
government of that country they will naturally ask, "Is this the character
of the Christianity you send us? Is this the way you keep faith? Is this
your estimate of moral duty? You make a compact with us, and you pay
no attention to the obligation of your compact." I do not think this is the
way to Christianize or civilize tlie Chinese. If we want to convert them to
our Christianity and otn* civilization we must show them tiiat we practice a
hisiher morality than this. lu my opinion the passage of this act in this
shape would be a great obstruction to the cause of Christianity in China for
a long time to come.
I said that chuiches had already been planted among them in California.
Less than two years ago the Southern I'aptist convention appointed a mis-
sionary to San Francisco to teach the Gospel to that people. He has been
laboring with them but a short period, and he now has a small church of
Chinamen. Other denominations of Christians also have churches there.
APPENDIX. 701
Under all the disadvantages and all the disrespect shown them there, the
Gospel still makes its impression upon them; and if we should tre.it them
differt'iilly we do not know how fiist, hy getting into their confidence and
showing a disposition to do justice, the Gospel would spread among them.
But It is said that there is such an immense number of them, if we permit
them to come here witiiout restraint, they will overrun the whole country.
There have been about thirty-two years when there has been no such
restraint. The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was ratified, I believe, in 18i8.
From that time until this, so far as I know or recollect, there has been no
law that prohibited the importation. What number have they reached in
thirty-two years y The senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Hoar] in his able
speech tnhl ns, the other day, that, according to the last census, there were
about 1(18,000 Chinese in this country, about 76,000 of those in Californin.
Divide that into thirty years, and what has been the average each year?
Between three and four thousand immigrants a year. Some years it has
gone above that, some years it has fallen below. Probably there has been a
larger number of immigrants, but to speak accurately, for a great many have
gone back, that is the number remaining here to overrun this immense con-
tinent and subjugate the Anglo-Saxons in the United States. In thirty-two
years they have succeeded in having 108,000; but as it is said the census did
not embrace all, put it at 150,001, if you please, and it has been a very small
importation as compared with that fiom other countries. Take the last year,
and the reports show that there were in round numbers 6G9,O0O immigrants
into this country, nearly three-quarters of a million, llow many of them
were C'liinamen? A mere fractional part; and last year, bear in mind, they
were laboring under the stimulus iliat this treaty would soon be m the way,
and it was better to hurry up if any of them expected to get in as laborers.
Even then, I believe, some 20,000 Ciiinamen is all that it is claimed came to
this country out of 689,000 immigrants during the year.
Ko, Mr. i^iesident, there is notiiing in that point. There is no danger of
the Chinese race, or any other eastern race, overrunning the Anglo-Saxon or
any white race in Europe or America. The tide of emigration has been
westward, and still westward, since the days of the Goths and Vandals. Yes,
it runs westward. 'J'he Chinese em{>ire is in a great deal more danger to-day
of being ov^errtm and subverted by Yankee energy and Yankee enterprise on
the one side, and the empire of Russia on the other, and England on the
ocean, than this country is of being overrun by Chinamen. If we can get a
treaty there as liberal as we can by acting in good faith, at no distant day
they will admit our people without restraint, and then we may expect our
merchants and nianufactiu'ers of various classes to go. and we will soon have
thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of our people in China.
It is a vast field opening to commerce; it is a vast field opening to manu-
factures and to railroads, and to every other enterprise, to steamships, to
telegraphs, to telephones, to all the inventions of the age. It is a wide field
open for us. No [)eople ou earth are more interested in that country than
the people of the United States.
As I said in the outset, Great Britain has the lead there now. If we keep
faitli with Chinamen and the Chinese government, and act as we ought to
act as a rising agricultural and manufacturing power, being a great silver-
producing country as we are, with our great silver mines, and they being
monometallists in silver, and with our manufacturing establishments making
just the fabrics they need, we ou^iht to build up a boundless trade there, and
it ought to be a great field for white men's energy and thrift and gain. I
do not think, then, we would act wisely to violate good faith with these
people.
702 APPENDIX.
We have made vast expenditures to enable us to reach the immense future
commerce of China, Japan, and other Asiatic nations. We have as good as
donated sixty-six millions of dollars, which, with interest, now amounts to
about one hundred millions of dollars, and land grants covering a territory
larger than the republic of Fpance or the German empire, to open a great
highway by railroad to the commerce of the East, which brings that com-
merce to our doors by a route thousands of miles nearer than it can be
reached by European nations. In addition to this, companies of capitalists
have constructed a southern line of railroad across the continent, to put the
southern section of the Union in closer relations with the Eastern poweis.
And still another great line is being rapidly pressed forward, known as the
Northern Pacific Road. In addition to all this we have put co.-^tly lines of
steamers on the Pacific ocean. Thus we have already expended hundreds
of millions of dollars to open the highways of commerce to the Eastern
empires. We produce about 00 per cent, of the cotton of the world. The
4UO,OOU,000 of people in the Chinese empire use cotton almost exclusively
for clothing. The cotton goods made by our mills meet their requirements
better than those made by the mills of any other country. This alone, to
say nothing of all the other commerce between the two countries, is to be a
vast item especially important to the Southern States of this Union.
By the Burlingame treaty we had conciliated the government and people
of China, and they have shown a disposition to cultivate the most friendly
relations with us; and to engage in an active commerce which will be mutu-
ally beneficial, and which may soon giow to hundreds of millions a year.
lu view of all these important considerations, are we prepared to sacrifice
the investments we have made, and the vast advantages opening to us for
the future, by giving unnecessary and unjustifiable olience to China by a
flagrant violation of our treaty stipulations with that government, when
there is not even a platisible pretext for the act, as we can amply protect
ourselves against the evils of any dangerous influx of Chinese laborers, and
still keep within both the letter and spirit of the treaty. The commerce
between this country and China is now rapidly on the increase.
In this connection I want to read from an answer to a telegram which I
sent to the Chief of the Bureau of Statistics. I inquired of him what was
the per cent, of increase in our commerce with the Chinese people since the
Burlingame treaty. lie states in reply that at the time of the adoption of
the treaty it was $15,365,013. During the year ending June 30, 1881, it was
^27,705,409, an increase almost doubling our commerce with China in thir-
teen years. Suppose we act in bad faith in this matter and offend that
people and their government, where we are in the wrong, may we expect
this progression of increase to go forward as it has goiu: since' the Burlin-
game treaty was ratified? No; we have much more reason to suppose it
will go backward, and that we will have to yield that nio-t inviting field to
I^ngland, and France, and other commercial nations, wlio will deal justly by
them and keep faith with them.
It has been objected, however, that tlie Chinamen in this country work
for wages lower than our people can afford to work, and thai we cannot on
that account permit them to come. " I state very Irankly that I do not want
to introduce a class of people here to interfere with the labor of this country,
or to reduce labor to a lower standard. I have always stood firmly by the
laboring classes. I oppose every measure that looks to the ri-duciion of the
l)rice of hibor. But when you look at the statistics and statements tiiat we
read in the newspapers, I belifve about the highest labor now on the conti-
nent is found in the State of California. I think the senator from Massa-
chusetts [Mr. Hoar] demonstrated that the other day in his speech. Our
APPENDIX. 703
laborers there get better wages, when they are willing to work, than they
get probably in any other State in the Union. This does not look as if
Chinese labor there has ruined our working people.
But there is another insuperable objection raised. It is said the Chinese
come here not to istay. It is not very consistt nt with the other proposition,
that they are going to overrun the continent, to state that tlit-y work and get
our money and then jio back home again. If they work so low that nobody
else can labor for half as small a price as thej do, for every dollar they carry
back they leave two dollars' worth of labor here. That does not destroy the
country much; that does not injure the United States a great deal. If we
can keep them out of conflict with other hi borers — and they have been mostly
engaged m railroad building and other pursuits where you could scarcely get
American laborers, in the wilderness — if they do that sort of labor for us
which we cannot get our people to do, and do it at half what the labor is
worth, and then leave with tlie money, we keep in improvements two dollars
for every one they take away, and our civilization has not been injured. So
that point, I think, weighs but little.
I believe, Mr. President, I have gone substantially over the ground I de-
sired to occupy in this case. As I stated in the outset, I am willing to vote
for a bill to restrict, limit, and for a reasonable time suspend, in accordance
with the spirit and provisions of this treaty, the imj-ortations of Chinese labor-
ers. I do not think twenty years a reasonable period. I do not think it in
conformity to the spirit and meaning of tiie treaty. I do think it a viola-
tion of the very spirit of the treaty. Therefore ou that point I shall vote for
the amendment of the senator from Kansas [Mr. Ingalls], which proposes
to limit it to ten years. I think that is as far as the Chinese Government
could permit us to go with the belief that we were acting in good faith. And
to show how careful they were on this subject, they have provided in the
treaty that any legislation we shall enact on tdis point is to be submitted to
them and become the subject of negotiation if it is not reasonable. We can-
not expect they will say that this is within the reason and spirit of the treaty.
If they say it is not, and claim further conce.-sioiis we shall probably then be
too proud to make them, for we shall have acted and will not like to go back
on our action, and the result will probably be disastrous to our intercourse
and our commerce with tliat empire.
If we commence by a shorter period of limitation or suspension, and the
.Government of China is satisfied with it, and we still believe at the end of
ten years that the importation of Chinese laborers is a positive evil, we can
re-enact it ; but I do not think it is wise or just, or that we keep faith when
we say we will commence by an absolute inhibition for twenty years under
heavy penalties. If that is the letter of the treaty it is clearly not the spirit
of it, and as statesmen, most of us lawyers, knowing something of the rules
of construction, it is our duty to deal fairly and construe this instrument as
we do other legal documents, and then to carry out faithfully its provisions
until we have changed them or have given notice that we will no longer be
bound by the treaty.
I know I do not occupy the popular side of this question. In a somewhat
protracted political career it has frequently been my misfortune to differ with
majorities, and to stand in the current without flinching, while the surging
waves of popular disapproval rolled over me and lashed me with their fury.
And I have afterward lived to see the storm subside, the elements become
calm and tranquil, and to hear the plaudit of well done, for the act that pro-
voked the storm.
The statesman who adopts the rule of pandering to popular opinion may
float peacefully with the current for the time, but he will soon be called to
704
APPENDIX.
answer at the same bar of public opinion for acts whicli at tlie time of tlieir
perfoiniaiice were hailed with deliglit. My rule is to inquire: Is it light?
and if right to move forward without fe;ir. 1 would railier be riglit ilian
popular. I would rather have tlie approval of my own cou.«-cieiioe than the
plaudits of the luultitude, or the temporary approval of those who aie con-
trolled by their passions and not by their reason and their judgment.
Speech of Hon. Joseph E. Browx, of Georgia, delivered ix the
JSknate of the United States, March 'J7, 1882, ox the 'J'ariff
CoMMissJOX Bii.L. IX which Fkke Trade, axd a Tariff for Pho-
TECTIOX, and A 'JaKIFF FOR UeVEXUE WITH IxCIDEXTAL PROTECTION
ARK DISCUSSED, ALSO TIIK INTKI5KST WHICH FlANTHRS, FaRMKRS,
Herdsmen, Wool-Growers, Fruit-Growers, etc., have in a
Tariff for Revenue w'ith Incidental Protection.
On the bill (S. No. 22) to provide for the appointment of a commission to investi-
gate the question of the tariff and internal-revenue laws.
Mr. Brown said :
Mr. Pre.-ideiit : I had not expected to say anything whatever on the pend-
ing bill. My tliroat is in such a condition to-day tliat I cannot speak with
much comfoit. However, as the tiiue au^reed on for the discussion is limited,
and other senators want to occupy the floor to-morrow, 1 will go on and sub-
mit a lew lemarks at this liour.
1 am not vain enough to suppose I can produce anytiiing new on thi^ great
question. It was di.-cussed by the great men who laid the foundations of
this Goverumeut. In 1816 and for many years after that date it was dis-
cussed by suih men as Calhoiui, Cliy, and Webster. It has since been dis-
cussed again and again by the first men of this coiuitry. 1'he princi|)les of
each conflicting theory are well un<lerstood. I have listened with great
intere^t to the able debate which has been conducted duiing this session, and
1 have heard but little that I could say was entirely new. It has been an
able presentation of facts and arguments ht-retofore produced hy the great
statesmen who have already exhausted the subject and left noihing new to
be said by tluise of the present time.
I do not, t'leiefore, propose to enter upon the discussion of the principles
involved either in free trade or protection, but I rose chit fly to say that in
my opinion this contest is more a war of words than of ideas. I do not
mean by tiiat that very strong ideas have not been produced on both
sides, that vt-ry foi-cible arguments iiavenot been brought forth on this floor,
because it is true that thi-re liave been miny good ideas submitted on both
sides. If they lacked novelty that did not detract from their force.
I notice by turning to the rejjort of the .Secretary of the Treasury that there
were collected dining the last fiscal year $198,159,070.02 on imjiorts. In
round numbi-rs, I will call it !520U,UlK),t)0 i per annum. How do we propose
in future to raise this sum, if we cannot dispense with it? A-; I understand,
it is not proposed to lessen to any great extent the appropriations which we
have to make this year. We still have to pay interest upon the public debt,
and to provide a proper sinking fund upon the debt each year, looking to an
extinction of it alter a reasonable time. We still expect to pay a very large
sum each year for pensions. We exjtect to appropriate large sums each year
for rivers and harbors, for the Army and Navy, tor the Military and Naval
Academies, for the civil establishment, for pensions and various other ex-
penditures. I confess that while I would be very happy to see a large re-
APPENDIX. 705
duction in the public expenditures, I do not see that the way is very clear
for it at this time. I do not believe we are likely to make the appropriation
at this session, judging fiom tlie appropriation bills 1 have already seen,
much less than they were for tlie present HscmI year. A very large additional
sum is asked for the improvement, of the iMississippi Kiver, and the present
terrible destruction of property by the great freshet would seem to justify
and indeed to require it. Thus you must raise $2U0,OUO,UOU by tariff for
the current year.
II>)\v do you propose to collect this !5200,00O,O0O ? There are but two modes
that I am aware of. One is a direct tax upon the people, the other is collect
it upon imports. Which will we choose ? 1 have heard no senator on this
side who has discussed what might be termed tlie free-trade side of the ques-
tion propose to raise it by a direct tax. What would it auiount to? We
have thiity-eight States. Take my own State, Georgia ; say it is an average
State, if $2UU,000,0n0 should be raised by direct taxation, Georgia must
raise each year in addition to what is now raised, by the collection uf inter-
nal revenue and State tax, a sum amounting to over $5,0U(),UUO. Her people
must submit to the present State tax, school tax, county tax, corporate
tax, and till the taxes now collected which they consider burdensome, and
we must add to that, if we are to collect it by a direct tax, more than $5,-
OUO,OuO a year, which would be about lour times as much as we now raise by
taxation added. I take it for granted no senator on this floor representing
any one of the States will advocate that couise for the collection of all our
Federal revenue. If he does, my opinion is he will find a large proportion
of his constituents differing in o[iinion with him. Then how do we propose
to collect it? AV'e must collect it as heretofore, by levying a tariff upon im-
ports. The addition of about five and a quarter millioiis a year to the inter-
nal revenue paid in cash by the peojile of Georgia for Federal purposes would
knock alt the poetry out of the able free-trade speeches to which we have
listened with so much interest.
Doubtless the same would be true in all other States. Our people prefer a
tarilf to direct taxes. They are willing that those who buy the most
imported goods pay the most tax.
But I see that we not only collect in round numbers <120n,000,000 a year
on imports, but we also collect $135,000,000 per annum at present by direct
tax laid upon certain articles, as whiskey, tobacco, etc. That tax I sujtpose
could not properly at present be collected upon imports, and yet the policy
and theory of this Government thus far has been, excepting war measures, to
collect the entire revenues by a tax upon imports. Tliis 1 believe to be the
true policy. I believe it was so from the foundation of the Government
down to the period of the war of 1812. Then, as I understand it, we had an
internal-revenue tax, something after the oider of that we have growing out
of the late unfortunate civil war; but the country got rid of it at no late
period after the war had terminated. Then our fathers of both political par-
ties. Whig and Democrat, advocated alike the collection of the revenues for
the support of the Government by a tariff upon imports.
I consider the present internal-revenue system an excrescence upon the
body-politic. So was that of the war of 16T2. They were war measures.
They were justifiable in public estimation upon no other theory. I wish to
see the present internal-revenue system gotten rid of, so that we may return
to the old rule of the fathers as soon as the expenditui-es can be reduced to a
point where we can, without too heavy an imposition of tariff iqion imported
goods, collect the entire money that the Government must raise annually by
a tariff upon imports, as advocated and practiced, except in time of war. by
Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Calhoun, Clay,
45
706 APPENDIX.
Webster, and all the great statesmen of this country. It is safe to heed the
counsels and follow the example of such men. The sooner we return to the
old beaten track trod by them the better.
I have introduced no bill at present for that purpose, because I see that
we caimpt probably at this time raise the amount that it is necessary to have
as revenue upon imports alone, but I trust the day is not far distant when
that can be done.
In view of that fact and in view of the large increase in the population of
this country, its increased resources of every character, tlie necessarily in-
creased expenditures tliat we liave to make every year, I do not see the
period ahead when it will be very important to discuss the question whether
we should collect a tax on imports for revenue only or for protection. You
will be obliged to collect more than ig200,OOU,000 a year probably for all the
future. It was last year over |360,000,()00, and $333,000,000 of it was on
imports and by the internal-revenue laws. If you have to collect that", and
if it is not likely in future ever to come below $250,000,000 or $3u0,t00,000
a year, there need be very little dispute about whether tht^ tariff is to be laid
for revenue only or for protection. It must be laid and collected, no matter
what you call it. If tlie tariff is properly distributed among the different
articles imported in every instance there will be a tariff affording as much
protection probably as such interest will need.
If I recollect correctly the earliest tariff imposed in this country expressed
on the face of it or in the title of the act that it was to be an act to raise
revenue and for the protection of manufacturing establishments. I think it
was necessary at that time, but the protection has been enjoyed for so long
a period and our manufacturing establisliments have so strengthened them-
selves that they are not in the condition they then were. It is not now
necessary, and probably will not be necessary in the future, to cons^ider se-
riously the question whether we must lay a tax on imports for the protection of
our home industries. As long as we have to collect from $200,000,000 to |3u0,-
Oi;0,000 a year for revenue that question will not bean important one. It
may be very important, and it is now, that the $200,000,000 or $300,01 '0,000
a year shall be distributed in such manner as to protect incidentally as far
as possible all our home industries and all our American productions, adjust-
ing it so as to do as much good as possible to all and as little harm as pos-
sible to any.
I confess I take a medium position here. I am neither a free-trade man,
willing to collect all the money we have to raise by direct tax upon the peo-
ple, nor am I willing to lay a tax simply for protection when the Governnjent
does not need the money. But if I had it in my power I would raise all the
money necessary to support the Government by tariff, and I would so adjust
the tariff which we have to raise to meet the necessary expenses of the Gov-
ernment as to afford as far as possible an incidental protection to home in-
dustry and to American productions. It seems to me that is common sense,
and that patriotism and statesmanship alike require it. We of the South
are more interested in incidental protection than the manufacturers of the
North. We are now in our infancy ; they have reached nearly to mature
manhood. Many of them are now able to take care of themselves. We are
not. They have skilled labor and the most improved machinery ; we have
little skilled labor and much of our machinery is not the best.
Some of the senators whose arguments seem to look in the direction of
free trade point out to the planters and farmers of this country the advan-
tages of free trade, and tell them that as the law now stands they pay a
heavy per cent, on the imported goods purchased by them, and grow eloquent
about the amount of money they would save on the goods purchased by them
APPENDIX. 707
if there were no tariff. Bat I have noticed tliat no one of them has told
the people how much direct tax they would be compelled to pay on their
lands and all their other property to raise the $-200,000,000 annually which is
necessary lo meet the demands on the Federal Treasury and which nmst be
raised by a direct tax if it is not collected by a tariff. They forget to tell
the people of Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, and other States how
much of the .|200,000,000 direct tax would fall to their share if there were no
tax on imports. There are planters in Georgia, worth ten or twenty thou-
sand dollars, who live so nearly within themselves that they pay very little
toward the support of the Federal Government, as they buy very little of
the imported goods that are taxed. Their coffee and tea are on the free list,
and their part of the burden is very light. Others who purchase largely of
fine clothes and luxuries pay most of tlie tax. But if we abolish the tariif
and raise the money by direct tax, the property of those who live within their
means and live on the production of their farms will be taxed more than
many others who purchase much more largely of luxuries or imported goods,
because they have more property to be taxed than those have who live more ex-
travagantly and own less property. This very independent class of substan-
tial planters would for the first time feel the weight of the burden when
called on annually to pay in cash five times as much direct tax as they
now pay.
There are gentlemen of great ability who believe that the true theory is to
lay tax on imports with a view to tiie collection of revenue only. Then, why
is it that we find coffee and tea upon the free list? I see by looking at the
last official report that there were during the year 1881 imported free into
this country over .'§5(3,000,000 worth of coffee; the year before tliat over i$60,-
000,000 worth. I see also that during the year 1881 more than .^21,000,000
worth of tea was imported free into this country. If we are laying a tariff
for revenue only, why not put it heavily upon tea and coffee ? The people of
this country did not dispense with the use ot whiskey and tobacco because
you doubled the price by the tax on them ; and if you are after revenue only
you may put 100 per cent, of the value upon tea and coffee and there will
still be almost as large a quantity used as there now is. I advocate no such
thing. I do not ask that C(jffee be taken off the free list, I only say the peo-
ple of this country, drink it, and intend to contiime to drink it, and you can
put no reasonable tax upon it that will cause them to cease the use of it. I
would not advocate the ch;>nge, but 1 ask my friends who advocate a tariff
for revenue only, without any regard to incidental protection to home in-
dustry, why not put a very heavy tax upon these articles that nobody doubts
would be paid? If revenue is what you want to raise, you can raise forty
millions on coffee. If you want revenue without regard to incidental protec-
tion, tea will pay you many millions of dollars if you will put a tariff upon it
and not let it stand upon the free list.
I take it when we sit down and undertake to draw a tariff bill and under-
take to pass it through the senate, placing twenty-five per cent, or fifty per
cent, upon tea and coffee, which will bear it for revenue only, it would find
few advocates. Yet why not put a tariff upon them if we are not afraid of
the people, and if we go for revenue oidy, and prefer not to give incidental
protection to home industry and home productions? A tariff on tea and
coffee protects no Americm industry, and if we are opposed to the incidental
protection of American industry and want to so levy the tax, as simply to
raise revenue, then why not put it on tea and coffee? We raise no tea in
this country worth mentioning; we raise no cott'ee here; yet we bring in of
these articles a very large amount of merchandise free of tax, becaitse every-
body uses them, and statesmen are not willing to meet the popular clamor
708 - APPENDIX.
that would be raised by putting a heavy tax upon them. At present we per-
mit tliese articles to come in free, and I think coirectly, because the people
of this country so desire it, aud the poorer classes are better able to use them.
I tliink instead of putting the tax upon tea and coffee, that protects no
American industry, it is better that we put it on other things which shall
protect American industry. Tiierefore I am not finding fault with the law
as it now stands in reference to tea and coffee. Let the people have them as
cheap as possible. I am simply saying that if we are for revenue only we
are then inconsistent in not imposing a heavy tax upon those articles.
To illustrate, suppose the whole amount to be raised by taiiff to be
$2(),U0U,O0(J. Tea and coffee would bear the whole amount and still be im-
ported and used almost as extensively as they now are. Now as we do not
raise tea and coffee in this country we would give no protection, incidental
or otherwise, to American industry or American productions by collecting
the wliole amount on those articles. But suppo.-e you put the ^20,000,(100 of
tariff on manufactured articles, made of cotton and flax, then you give 820,-
Ol)0,OOl) incidenial protection to factories and laborers engaged in the produc-
tion of those articles. In each case the people pay precisely the same amount
of tax or tariff, to wit : $20,000,0(J0. If it is collected on tea and coffee the
tax is more generally distributed, and more of it is paid by the poorer class
of our people who use tea or coffee and who purchase but few manufactured
articles. -In the other case, the wealthier class, who purchase more numu-
factured articles pay most of the tax. Now, I submit it to eveiy candid
American citizen, which woidd best promote American interest: to collect
the amount which we are compelled to pay by putting it upon such articles
as give incidental protection to home industry, or on such articles as discrim-
inate in favor of foreign industry and foreign production? It seems to me
too clear for controversy that we should give the incidental protection to our
own home industries.
1 find in looking at the last ofBcial report that there were $650,000,000 of
merchandise in round numbers, I do not quote the thousands, imported last
year. Of this $I48,00(t,O0O paid revenue and $202,000,000 came in on the
free list; and a large number of those articles on the fiee list are articles that
we do not compete with here. I tliink it is judiciously put where it is in
most cases. If we could get rid of the Internal Revenue Bureau, with all its
consequences, whicli I do not care to speak about at present, I would be will-
ing to put some tariff on a number of articles that are now upon the free list.
As matters now stand we maintain two armies of collectors — those at the
custom-house and those at the internal-revenue offices. It is an immense ex-
pense, and it is an immense engine of political power, and I do not think it
is desirable that it should be in the hands of either political party. While
the internal-revenue systrm is at present an engine of power in the liaiids of
the Republican party, if the Democracy were in power to-day and our imports
would bear it, 1 would advocate aboli.shing the internal-revenue system entire-
ly. Let us have but the one corps of collectors, and let those be at the ports.
But again, I see that of the total amount of duties collected, $17,000,000
in round numbers was ct)llected on sugar and molasses. Tiiis gives a pro-
tection of about 40 per cent, to our sugar planters. This is protection to
Southern planters. I simply submit it to my free-trade friends, if there be
any here, whether we could maintain the Southern sugar plantations one
year after that taiiff is taken off. If widi $I7,<)U0,(J00 of prot< ction we
are hard run to make anything under the present system of labor on our
sugar i)lantations, what would it be if you should enact free trade there?
Much ado is already made about tiie sugar tliat comes in free under the
Hawaiian treaty of reciprocity, and it is getting to be a serious evil.
APPENDIX. 709
Again, $27,000,000 was collected on wool and the manufactures thereof.
What would our free-trade friends, if there be any here, say, or ratht- r what
would the constituents of those friends say to thein in all }il;ices. in the pas-
toral lands of Texas and the great West where there are sucli immense flocks
of sheep, if you were to remove this tax upon woolens, for wool and woolens
stand next to sugar and molasses in the quantity of tariff raised upon tluni ?
They are now protected by $27,000,000 raised on wool and woolens. And if
you were to impose a direct tax in lieu of this — in other words, if you were
to withdraw the protection that you now give them on wool, and put about
five times as much direct tax (as a United States tax) as they now p.iy as a
State tax upon their flocks and the property they use in producing wool,
what would they say to you? I do not think that such action would be ap-
proved by any Western constituency where sheep are raised.
The third largest item is the duties on iron and steel and the manufactures
thereof, amounting to $21,000,000 in round numbei's. There may bf some
portions of the Middle States where they are far enoui;ii advanced in the
manufacture of iron and steel to afford to have the tariff" removed and have
a direct tax, four or five times as much tax as is now collected, imposed upon
the plant and machinery and everything used in making iron, but I do not
think there is such a place in Pennsylvania, which I believe has the lead in
the iron business. I am very sure we could not stand a moment under it in
Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee, where the iron interest is in future to be
one of the greatest interests of the South, if not crushed by unfriendly legis-
lation. Lai'ge amounts of capital are now being invested in it, and it is af-
fording employment to a large number of people.
The fourth largest item is the manufacture of silk, $19,000,000. That is a
great growing interest in this country, that I suppose no statesman desires
to destroy. I am not in this connection discussing whether any of the pres-
ent tariff" rates are too high or too low, or what adjustment they need ; I sim-
ply say I presume no member of the senate would desire to withdraw
entirely the tax from silk and let that interest go down. There has been an
immense amount of capital invested in it, and we import most of the raw
material from abroad, in fact nearly all of it. To remove the tariff from it
would be to entirely crush it. It seems to me it would not be good states-
manship to do it, and then impose a direct tax, as the free-trade advocates
must do to raise the necessary revenue after they abolish the tariff, of more
than four times as much as the owners of the silk factories now pay upon
the plant and machinery and everything conuectud with it. That interest
could not stand a moment under such legislation.
The fifth in the list is cotton and the manufactures of it. As much as has
been said about cotton-mills, there are four other great interests that stand
ahead, and more revenue is paid on account of them than on account of the
importations of cotton and cotton goods. There it is only $10,000,000 in
round numbers that is collected.
The sixth item is flax. That is grown by our farmers in several of the
States of the Union, and is a very important interest. Flax and the manu-
factures of flax yield a revenue of nearly $7,00i),n(i0 a year to the Govern-
ment. What would those who raise flax in the We>t and to some extent in
the South say to us if we were to take this tariff entirely oft" and put from
three to five times as much tax as we now do upon the lands on which they
raise the flax':* That would be carrying out free trade and direct taxation to
its legitimate result. I do not believe any senator desires that. Hence I
do not believe there is a senator here who is an open advocate of free trade
in this countiy while we are obliged to make the immense collections of rev-
enue that we now make. If there is, I have heard no one so express it. The
710 APPENDIX.
remarks of some senators indicate free trade. But I ask senators if they
are for free trade with its legitimate consequences? Free trade means to
raise !J200,000,0()0 annually by direct taxation upon the property of all the
people in addition to the present internal revenue and btate taxes. I ask
senators if they are for it?
There are a great many other articles that are protected which are not
simply manufactured articles. The six items I have referred to, however,
and they are all very important ones in the industry of this country, yield
$133,000,000 of revenue, or over 69 per cent, of the whole amount of revenue
collected on imports. No one, I presume, desires to crush any one of those
great interests.
But there are other important interests of the farmer that are protected by
the present tariff. There is a tariff upon live-stock ; you may say it does not
need protection. Why? There was $3,700,000 worth of live-stock brought
into this country last year to get in and compete with our stock-raisers that
paid tariff. Your herdsmen would not be very much obliged to you for tak-
ing off the present tariff that protects their live-stock, and adding four or
five times as much direct tax on the herds as they now pay. This is the in-
evitable result of free trade.
Then I find that barley is protected. That is a product of the farmer
again ; and, notwithstanding the tariff, there was $7,200,000 worth of barley
and barley malt that paid the tariff and came in last year to compete witli
our farmers who raise barley. What would the people of Missouri, Ken-
tucky and other Western States that raise barley say to the free-trade man
who would propose to take off that tariff and let all the barley of foreign
countries come in, and add a tax of from three to five times as much as is
now collected upon the plantation where the barley is raised? The farmer
who plants barley would not like that sort of free trade.
Then on the article of cotton and cotton manufactures there was over
$30,000,000 worth iuiported last year that paid the tariff. If you will remove
the tariff from the statute-book, and impose upon our cotton plantations and
factories from three to five times the present amount of taxes, they will not
be much obliged to you. If you repeal the tariff and enact free trade there
is not a cotton plantation in the South that will not have to pay from three
to five times as much direct tax as it now pays. Many of tlieni now buy
little that is imported, and pay little of the tax. Then they would all be
taxed on the value of their plantations, adding for United States tax three
to five times as much as they now pay the State.
There was over $16,000,000 worth of flax, and articles manufactured of
flax, that came in last year and paid the tariff. Would you take the tariff
from flax and load the lands upon which our farmers produce it with a heavy
direct tax? *
Take the item of fruits and nuts, another item in which the planters, the
farmers, the orchard men and gardeners are interested. There was over
$12,000,000 worth of fruits and nuts imported last year that paid tariff be-
fore they could compete with our fruits and nuts. Your fruit men would not
bless your memory if you were to take off all the tariff that now jirotects
them, and impose a heavy direct tax upon their orchards, their vineyards
and their gardens.
There was over four million dollars' worth of fm-s imported last year that
paid the tariff and came in. Ynur Western hunters would not be much
obliged to you for taking off all tariff tiiat protects their furs. Whether
you could impose any direct tax on their business or not, they would still
want the protection they now have. But other articles besides those men-
tioned in which the farmer is interested are protected by the present tariff.
APPENDIX. 711
Indian corn, oats, rye, wheat, and the meal or flour made of the qualities of
grain mentioned are protected, and some of each has come in and paid the
tariff to jiet in during the past year; pease, beans, and other seeds of legu-
minous plants were imported last year to the value of $337,000, and paid
tariff to get into competition with our own farmers; about one million of
dollars' worth of bristles annually pay tariff to get in ; hair to the value of
over $660,000 paid tariff and came in; "jute and other grasses " which can
be raised in Florida and other Southern States, and the different nianufac-
tuies of those products came in to the value of about 89.000,000, and paid
tariff; leather and the manufacture of leather of all kinds, worth nearly
$6,000,000, did the same; the same is true of potatoes to the value of over
$8741000 ; provisions, (meats, poultry, lard, butter, cheese, etc..) not includ-
ing vegetables, to the value of $1,278,000, paid tariff before they could get
in and compete with our farmers; flax-seed or linseed, and other seeds, worth
$1,713,000, did the same; the same was true of tobacco and cigars, worth
over $6,000,000; the same is true of wines, spirits, and cordials, to the value
of over $8,000,000, which can be raised on the Pacific slo[)e as well as in
Europe, which is soon to become one of our great agricultural inteiests ; the
same is true of woods, including boards, joists, scantling, shingles, etc, worth
over $8,000,000; rice to the amount of over 61,000,000 of pound.-^, worth
$1,413,000, also paid tariff and came in. I might add still others to the
long list of protected articles which pertain to the interests of our farmers,
planters, herdsmen, gardeners, fruit-growers, etc., but I do not deem it nec-
essary.
Now, I ask senators, would your sugar-planters, your rice-planters, your
hemp-planters, your flax-planters, your fruit-growers, your herdsmen and.
gardeu-men, and all the others I have mentioned, approve your action if yoti
should remove all protection from them and load them with a heavy burden
by direct taxation? If that is not what you mean by free trade, what do
you mean? You can mean nothing else. I believe no senator will get up
here and say he advocates it. Then, if that be true, it is understood, I siip-
pose, that we are to continue to collect the revenues, or much the larger
portion of them at least, and I trust at no distant day all of them, by a tariff
upon imports. If so, on what articles will you impose that tariff'? It is an
immense sum you have to raise. You cannot get rid of it. There is noes-
cape from it ; you must collect it ; and you will continue to collect it. There
is a vast amount of protection in it, no matter how you shape the tariff. But
the question is, will you so shape it as to give sufficient incidental protection
to American intei'ests, or will you try to shape it so as to cripple those great
interests ?
I repeat it, What will you put the tariff upon ? Will you protect Ameri-
can industry and American productions, or select such articles as tea and
coffee and others that we do not cultivate in this country and in which we
do not compete, and put it upon them to avoid the protection of American
industry? I presume not. Then where will you place it? You have to
collect it, or if not tell me how you will get rid of it, and what substitute you
will put in its place as a mode of collection of revenue to support tlie Gov-
ernment? I apprehend no one will suggest a new plan. Then it seems to
me that it is proper we should so adju-t it as to afford, as far as possible, in-
cidental protection to every American industry and every American lal)orer.
There may be some branch of American labor that it is not in our power to
protect. There is no tariff now, I believe, imposed upon raw cotton intro-
duced into this country. There is a very considerable number of pounds
brought in that now pays no tariff, yet on account of our superior climate,
soil, manner and quality of production we need very little done in our favor
712 APPENDIX.
South by imposing a tariff on cotton to keep it out of our marketp. We
cannot, 1 grant, att'ord equal |>rotection to the labor in all the different fields ;
but is that a reason why we should not so adjust the tariff as to |not*-ct as
far as we can incidentally the laborers in other pursuits where it is in our
power? We surely are not antagonistic to American interests. We do not
prefer the interests and the labor ot other countries. ]f we do not, the pre-
sumption is, we prefer our own. If we do prefer our own, why not. in the
collection of the large amount that must he collected, so impose the duty as
to give incidental protection to the extent of our power to our own 'f It
seems to me that is not only wise statesmanship but common sense and
patriotism. AVliat other course would be better? I confess it does not
occur to me.
I may not understand this qjiestion, but I would be very thankfni to any
Senator on either side who will point out to me a better mode of collecting
this three hundred and odd million dollars a year that we now collect by
tariff and internal revenue, or the •'520(),000,OUO that we now colli-et by tariff.
I do not pretend to say that the present tariff is a just one; I do not be-
lieve it.
As to the point in reference to the coiumission, taking this view of the
question, it seems to me to be very important that early action should be
taken to so equalize and adjust the protection given by this $2U(>,00i',0UU that
we have to raise every year on imports as to do the most good, to fo>ter in-
cidentally as far as we can American productions and American industries
without doing injustice to other American industries. I am aware that the
task is a very delicate one. There has never been a perfect tariff ; I sup-
pose there never will be; but I presume every senator who has studied this
question feels anxious to approximate perfection in it as nearly as jiossible,
to raise as small an amount as we can raise tor the support of the (Joveru-
ment, but to raise it as it is at present raised, by a tariff, and in collecting
that tariff to do what we can incidentally to build up American industry and
not to crush it.
Mr. President, I am not prepared to say that the two Houses of Congress
are not competent to take up this question and dispose of it, but it has been
here for many years not dis|)os(d of. I see no movement that indicates that
it is likely to be disposed of at this session in any other manner than by a
commission. AV'ith the immense amount of Imsiness Congress now has be-
fore it I do Jiot think any connnittee of gentlemen of the two Houses under-
standing this question can afford to absent themselves from the deliberations
of their respective Houses long enough to frame and bring in anyihing like
a perfect tariff bill. When the commission is raised it is simply one to in-
vestigate and report. It is presumed the President will appoint men of
known ability, representing the ditt'erent shades of opinion on this question.
He cannot do his duty and act otiierwise. Such a commission in some
months or a year, if you please, if they shall be diligent, taking hold of the
whole question, can find where the friction is; they can see where it is
uecessary to trim off.
Mr. Bayard. They can report from time to time.
Mr. IJrown. As the senator from Delaware snggest.s, they can from time
to time report. They can take up for instance a particular subject, as cotton
and articles nniuufactured of cotton, or sugar and molasses, or whatever
articlt^s they may think best, and if they desire they can report very fre-
quently upon the questiuu. After they have made their report we are not
bound by it. 'The object is simply to give us information on the subject.
When we get that information it will be proper that we should so use it as
to promote the pujjlic interest, and that we should frame with that informa-
APPENDIX. 713
tion in our possession a tariff bill that will approximate as nearly as possi-
ble justice to all sections and all interests. It is not a heavy expense ; it
takes no time that is not likely to be taken anyhow, as every senator sees.
Then why not create the commission and let it go to work enery-etically at
once, ijet up the information desired and communicate it to us, and then let
us act upon it? I see nothing better in the present state of things than a
conunissiou. and on that account I shall support the pending measure.
As between tlie proposition of the conmiittee and the proposition of the
senator from Arkansas, I prefer that of the committee for the reason that I
do not think at this stage of the session any three senators on this floor, or
any thne memhers of the House, would give up their legislative duties and
go into such jin investigation. If it is said : let it lie over until vacation,
that is consnniing a great deal of time, it seems to me unnecessarily ; and I
presume there are lew senators here, after they have been exhausted as
mucli as they will be by the labors of this long session, who would undertake
to spend tlie vacation in the investigation of this subject. If you were to
call for volunteers, j\Ir. President, I apprehend it would be hard to get a re-
sponse. Then it seems to me it would be better to appoint men of marked
ability and disconnected with Congress, representing all the shades of opin-
ion, and let ihem get the facts for us, report them to us, and then let us act
as we think best fur our constituents with all the facts before us.
j\Ir. Piesident, a good deal has been said here about Democratic platforms,
and North and South. I see no reason why that should enter into this dis-
cussion. The Democratic party, to which I am proud to belong, will not
again, in my opinion, incorporate in its platform a tariff plank that calls for
"a tariff tor ri-venue only." I believe its platform will be for revenue with
incidental protection, and as much of it as the amount required to be raised
when properly distributed will reasomdily afford.
Again, there ai-e many Democratic districts in the United States that are now
represented by Democratic members of the House, that it wnnld be ini[)ossible
to carry upon a free-trade platform or a platform of a tariff for revenue only
without any incidental protection. The senator from South Carolina [Mr.
Butlt-r] asks me if there are some in Georgia of that kind. I tell him very
frankly 1 think there are. I am not sure but that there may be some in the
senator's own State. When you come to removing the tariff from the rice-
fields of G< orgia and the Carolinas and imposing a heavy direct tax on the
rice plantations, there is a large class there wlio woidd demur; when you
come to removing the tariff entirely from sugar, there is a large cla.ss that
would demur in Louisiana, and Florida, which is going to be one of the
great siigar States; when you come to removing the tariff entirely from
wool, the large class of wool-.s:ro\vers will deumr. Therefore. I a<_'ree with
the senator from South Carolina that there are districts in the South, as well
as in the North, which the Democracy cannot carry on a platform of a tariff
for revenue only. On the other hand, from the best information I have, I
believe there are districts in the West where there are no manufacturing
establishments, that are strongly Republican, that my Kepiiblican friends
would have difficidty in carrying on a platform to raise money for protection
for protection's sake. 1 do not think they can do it. In other words, the
peoi^le of this country are not ready to adopt either of the extremes. The
medium giound is the ground they will occupy, and the sooner this whole
tariff question is eliminated from the politics of the country and dropped
from the platforms of the two parties, leaving it to the representatives of
each district, and of each State and Territory to take such course here as
they think for the liest interest of their constituents, the better, in my opin-
ion, it will be for the whole country.
714 APPENDIX.
Entertaining this view, T cannot enter into any party discussion here, for
I do not think either party is irrevocably committed for the future on tliis
question. It is a grave question ; it is a great question ; it is full of embar-
rassments, and it ought to be tiie pleasure and pride of every statf^sman to
do all he can to solve it in such manner as M'ili best promote the interests of
the whole American people, north, south, east and west.
Spekch of Hon. Joseph E. Brown, of Georgia, delivered in the
Senate of the United States, December 14, 1S82, on the Bill
for Civil-Service Reform. Its passage not demanded by the
people. In its present shape it is either a Delusion or an Act
OF Injustice to a majority of the people of the United States.
The Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, having' under consideration the Bill (S.
133) to regulate and improve the civil service of the United States —
Mr. Brown said :
Mr. President: I admit it is very impoitant that there be a better system
of administration inaugurated than we have liad for many years past. I do
not think, however, that the bill now before the senate, if passed, will in-
augurate any such system. I think it will prove a mere dehnion. If we
pass it we excite popular expectation, and popular expectation will be greatly
disappointed in the workings of the system. I have heard the British sys-
tem spoken very highly of; many eulogies passed upon it. It has been said
by advocates of this bill — probably not on the floor, but again and again out-
side of the Chamber — that we should adopt something similar to that system,
if not the exact system itself.
Now, Mr. President, the forms of the two governments are entirely differ-
ent, the circumstances are different, and the surroundings are differerit. The
system that may work well there in a limited monarchy, the policy of which
is to maintain an aristocracy, even a landed aristocracy, is not appropriate to
a republican form of government like oni-s.
In Great Britain the executive is hereditary. The incumbent derives his
right, not by election of the subjects or citizens of that country, but by birth-
right. The upper house of the British Parliament is not elected, but those
who occupy seats there, unlike this body, are dependent upon the accidt^nts
of birth for them, not upon any special merits or personal qualifications that
they may have, but the duke takes his seat because he is the son of the for-
mer duke.
That is not our American system. It is very consonant, however, with that
system to adopt a civil-service rule that, while the executive is for life and
liereditary and the higher branch of the legislative department holds for life
and is hereditary, will make the subordinate officers hold for life. I say it
is consistent and compatible with that system. It is not so here. Under our
republican system no man takes anything by hereditary right, but the way is
open to the son of the humblest peasant within the broad limits of our
domain, if he has merit and energy and ability, to occupy the highest posi-
tion in the Government. Our theory is that men are to be piomoted on
account of merit and qualifications. It may not always be carried out — of
course it cannot always be — but that is the nature of the system and that is
the general practice. It is compatitih-, therefore, with that systi'tn to leave
the changes in the legislative department, in the executive department, and in
every department except the judicial to the frequent mutations of parties and
to the sujiposed merits of the competitors who compete for the prizes. In
APPENDIX. 715
all the departments, legislative and executive, qualification is supposed to be
looked to. Election of representatives and the hi<rher officers is the general
idea. Why in the face of that should we establish for the subordinate offi-
cers in the different executive departments and in all the larger offices within
the limit of the United States a system of lifetime tenure for the very large
class of persons who fill those places ? I say it is not compatible with our
very form of government. It is one step in the direction of the establish-
ment of an aristocracy in this country, the establishment of another privi-
leged class.
It may be said, however, and I believe that sentiment was uttered only a
few days ago, though not in the language I use, probably, that it takes away
from persons who hold these positions the inducement to be active politi-
cians. In some cases that might be the working of it ; but bear in mind,
Mr. President, it leaves it in the power of every one of them to become an
active politician, and if the spirit of the system is carried out as claimed by
the senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Hoar] the officers can be as active as
they choose on one side, and one side alone, and run no risk of losing their
positions. It builds up a powerful class supported out of the Treasury of the
United States, out of the taxes of the people, and places in their hands the
power, if they choose to exercise it — and there is a great de.al of human
nature in man, so that they probably would exercise it — the power to do
much to control tlie future rulers and destinies of this Government.
I am not very fresh from my reading of Roman history ; but as I recollect
it there was a period in the history of that government when it became
necessary to establish the Prsetorian guard to protect the ruler against the
populace. It would naturally enough have been claimed that tiiat guard
would take no part in the politics of Rome, and yet in the workings of time
that Praetorian guard became the master of Rome and assumed control of
the government. As they protected the sovereign, they dictated wlio should
be the sovereign, and for a large enough amount of money they would dis-
place one sovereign to make room for another. How do we know that we
may not build up a similar class here when we build up a lifetime aristoc-
racy in office, or when we establish a lifetime tenure of office? It is con-
trary to the very genius and spirit of our Government.
My honorable friend from Ohio [Mr. Pendleton], who has this bill in
charge, stated yesterday that the bill did not make any provision preventing
removals from office. I do not find that it does in languase, but the honor-
able senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Hoar] tells us to-day tliat that is the
spirit of it; that that is what is contemplated, and that it is not likely that
an executive officer would venture to make removals, acting under this bill,
unless for cause, as misconduct in office and the like.
That is what the movers of this bill look to. I do not say that it is what
the senator from Ohio looks to, or that such is his purpose ; but as I under-
stand it, it is the purpose of those who lead on the other side of this Cham-
ber and bring to this bill its most efficient support. But that is not all —
Mr. Hawley. I do not like to interrupt; I refrain from it as much as I
can; but I desire to call the senator's attention to the fact that those who
have spoken for the bill affirm in the most vigorous and unliuiited manner
the right and duty of the Executive to remove at pleasure. 1 will not take
it away from the Executive. I do not see how the Prjctorian guard can hurt
him much if he can take the Praetorian guard by the ear and lead them out
any morning he pleases.
^Ir. Brown. Then I ask what is the value of this bill? It is the sheerest
humbug and the sheerest deception and nonsense. If we are to go through
all this great ado before the country of passing a civil-service bill, which it
716 APPENDIX.
is said is so much demanded by popular sentiment at this lime, if we have
to sali-fy popular clamor by the enactment of a civil-service bill, wli.it a de-
ception, what a fraud upon the people to tender them this bill ! If there be
really in the fiopular mind a demand for any such bill as is usually termed
civil-service reform, it is a liill to make permanent the positions of those who
hold olhces, to confine removals to cm use alone. The class who ask for it, I
think, are a very small minority of the American people. At the same time
they ask for it in that spirit and with that purpose, and they would on-ider
themselves mocked if this bill is passed containing no protection for the in-
cumbents against removal witiiout cause. What good does it do as a meas-
ure of reform if the power of removal is unlimited and without cause at the
mere will or whim of the appointing power? The civil-service reformers
who are most clamorous for action, and who are in earnest about tlie mattt- r,
would consider such a measure, if that is all it means, as a trick, a sham, a
delusion.
But it requires a competitive examination, say the senators on the other
side, hefore you put a man into office. There again the bill is a cheat and a
mockery. It does no such thing in spirit and substance. For fear there
miyht come a day wlien a Democratic executive would administer the affairs
of this Goverimient, and that day might not be very distant, there is a care-
ful provision in tlds bill that it shall ^pply only to the lowest class who are
to hold office. There shall be a competitive examination fur the lowest grade
only; that is free to all; and the senator fiom ^Massachusetts who took his
seat a few minutes ago very earnestly stated that that was one of the strong
features in it.
Now, I believe that there is a very large number of employes in the De-
partments at present, occupying different positions in them, some of them
high positions, who are not fit for those places, morally, intellectually, or in
any other manner; but the charmed circle in not to be disturbed. If there
chances to be one of the lower clerkships vacant, then the doors are thrown
wide open by this bill and every American citizen may come up and com-
pete for it. It will not do to go higher than that, for too many Democrats
might get in. You Democrats may come up and compete for the lowest
clerkships that are to be filled; but if a vacancy occurs above that, then the
Republican employes and officers already in office, and they alone, can apply
for the advancement or promotion. That is the civil-service reform that this
bill gives to the country; that is the share that the Democratic party ^'ets
in it. I repeat it, under the provisions of this bill the competition is only
general for the lowest office that can become vacant. There a Democrat
stands a chance to ^'et in this lowest position, but if fifty vacancies occur
above it only the present incumbents, the Republican office-holders, f-an com-
pete for the promotion. That is what it holds out to the Democratic party.
That is our share in its benefits.
Now, T am going to talk plainly to Democrats. It is not required for us to
mince words heie, for the country very well understands this whole question.
The Republican party have had the officf^s of this Government for the last
twenty-two years consecutively. The Executive has been Republican, and
they have had the distribution of the offices and places. They still have it.
True an avalanche has swept over the country, and with it the stroiiL'est con-
demnation of the practices of that party. It is true this was in the off year,
and not the Presidential year ; but prudent, sagacious men on the other side of
the Chamber understand this as well as we do on this side. If we make no
great l>lundei\s — and I know I have heard it said on the other side that they
rely a great deal on Democratic blunders, for we sometimes make them — un-
less the Democracy is guilty of great lolly ou some important questions there
APPENDIX. 717
can be, to my mind, and I think to the minds of senators generally, but little
doubt that the next president of this republic will be a Democrat,
J am speaking now to Democrats. How do you go into that campaign?
Suppose you put my honorable and worti)y fiiend from Ohio [Mr. Pentileton]
or my honorable b'iend from Delaware [^lr. Bayaid], or any other one of the
prominent and able gentlemen mentioned for the place, in nomination for
the rre.-sidency, and you go before the Democratic masses of the United States
and tell them that you are handicapped; that all the offices that amount to
anytliing, the higher and more imiiortant jilaces, are already disposed of.
'• Dispobcd of how?" they will inquire. " Why, the Republican party have
had them for twenty-two years, and seeing tliat there was a ]>robal)ility
of a change of administration " — to put it in no stronger light — " they
have hedged, and they have taken good care of themselves ; they have passed
a civil-service bill and Democrats have helped them to enact it; and we have
it on the statute-book now that there is no Democrat to be put into office in
any of the executive departments except in the lowest positions. Above
them the llupublicans alone may compete with each other for the places;
but there is no chance for a Democrat."
In a free republican government like this those who belong to both par-
ties fight for office as well as principle. Do you believe that the Democratic
leaders in all the different States would work with the same energy, and zeal,
and ability as they would if you held out to them a chance of a change ot the
offices with the change of the J^xecutive? Jt would be contrary to all the
history of the past to expect any such work.
I know it has been replied to this that the Democratic candidate would
not bkely have so strong opposition from the Republican office-holders in
office. 1 have no faith in that. The Republican office-holders are usually
ardent, true Republicans ; they believe in the principles and practices of their
party, and they want to promote and perpetuate them, and they believe that
that party lias a sort of divine right to the offices of this Government, and
they will be as true to their party in the campaign as the needle is to the
pole, while you deaden the eiieriries of the Demociatic leaders from the low-
est to the highest by taking away any inducements you would othei wi.-e hold
out to them to fight with the view of reaping any of the rewards of success.
They would vote the ticket patriotically as true Democrats, but they would
not exert themselves as they would do if they believed there would he a gen-
eral change or even a change of one-half the persons holding the offices.
I say, then, take it any way you will, I do not see, with great deference to
my friend from Ohio, why at this time a Democrat should vote for this bill;
certainly not without important amendments, that destroy the aristocracy of
Republican office-holding that this bill provides for. Will Democrats vote
for it when it closes the doors of the competitive examination against Demo-
crats for every position except the very lowest ? I do not wonder tluit our
Republicans friends are very unanimous, and very anxious at this time for
the passage of this bill. The only wonder I have is that it has (aken them
so lung to reach this point. The first tour years when they were in power
were years of war. It was then no time to discuss civil-service.
Perhaps the next two or three years ought not to be counted, during the
stormier period of reconstruction ; but take off six years from twenty-two and
it leaves about sixteen years of peace, when senators and representatives
were in condition here to consider the best interests of the whole country.
It has taken them sixteen years to reach the point of, as they consider, a real
civil-service reform.
Well, now, to show the humbuggery in this whole affair, there was a very
good civil-service statute put upon the book some years ago when General
718 APPENDIX.
Grant "vras president, and the law was not only enacted but the machinery
was provided. The three commissioners — I believe three was the nuiiiber —
were appointed. As is contemplated by the act, they went to work; civil-
service reform, it was said, was going to be given to the country then. Broad
plenary powers were given to the Prehident.
There were some very patriotic and able gentlemen, too, on the commission.
One of them was from my own State, Judge D. A. Walker, an honored name,
a worthy gentleman, a true Republican. They woiked and did, no doubt,
the best they knew how; and what real substantia] reform did the country
seeV It became so much of a mockery that Congre.ss in a few years after-
ward refused to appropriate the salaries of the commissioners. It was seen
to be a deception and a fraud in practice, wliatever might liave been intended
and however sincere President Grant might have lieen in iiis purj)0se to carry
it out in good faith. It failed. Jt was an inglorious failure; and matters
went on as matters will go on in this Government.
This is a republican government; it is democratic in form, and you ha-»e
to change the nature of the Government and change human nature also be-
fore you will be able to adopt in practice here any Utopian theories about
civil-service.
I do not laud the sentiment mentioned by the honorable senator from
Massachusetts, which he attributes to Mr. Marcy, that " to the victors belong
the spoils." Pie said it was rather coarse. Probably it was; but yet to a
very great extent it has been the system practiced from the first day of the
inauguration of this Government; and whatever you may put upon the
statute-book it will be the system practiced until its funeral knell is sounded.
And no party in this Government ever practiced the spoils system with more
zeal and energy than the Republican party has. " To the victors belong the
.spoils," has tieen its constant motto in practice ; and still would be, if impend-
ing defeat did not stare it in the face. There^may be some reforms, some of
the worst features may be cut off; but in the main the Executive who conies
into power when his party has long been deprived of power will find a way,
and the heads of departments under him will find a way to give to his fol-
lowers the benefit of tlie offices or a large proportion of them.
\Vhile General Grant had the power with a commission to inaugurate civil-
service reform — and I suppose he doubtless did all he could in good faith to
do it, for he seemed intent on it — yet the heads of departments and the sub-
ordinate heads found ready ways of evading it, and you may put this on the
statute-book —
Mr. George. INIay I interrupt the senator from Georgia to ask a question?
Mr. Brown. Certainly.
Mr. George. If it be true, as tlie senator from Georgia suggests, that a
new President and new heads of departments can find a way, notwithstand-
ing tlie statutes that we may put on our statute-books, to reward their fol-
lowers, their supporters, then 1 ask, in anticipation (as the senator seems to
think we are about to have one) of a Democratic success in IbSI, how can
this measure prevent a Democratic president and Democratic heads of De-
partments from rewarding their followers?
Mr. Brown. 1 answer the senator from Mississippi as I answered the
senator from Connecticut a while ago. He will not be restrained from doing
it, and that shows the miserable fraud and liumbuggery of this measure. In
effect it will amount to nothing, and cannot amount to anything.
Mr. George. Then will the senator from Georgia allow me to say that it
is not a fair argument to excite the prejudice of the Democratic party of this
country against this measure on the ground that its effect will be to prevent
a Democratic president from appointing Democrats to office?
APPENDIX. 719
Mr. Brown. I argued that proposition on the theory of the advocates of
the bill, that if you can carry out your policy, that ^ill be the effect; but I
say you cannot do it; and then you are engaged in that which is worse than
idle when you are here enacting this law.
Mr. George. Will the senator allow me to say that it is the statute and
not the theory of its advocates that is to have force in this country.
Mr. Brown. In fact it is the practice of those who execute the statute that
has force in this country. That is what it is. You may put on the statute-
book laws as stringent as you please to make them, and if popular sentiment
and the sentiment of those in power do not approve those laws, they will be
evaded in the execution and will be a mockery ; and so this will be.
I say the argument is legitimate, that, give the measure all you claim for
it, then as Democrats you should not vote to handicap your candidate, and
you should not vote to retain in office for life those who have held the posi-
tions for so long a time, and who are your political enemies. But if it is not
true, that it will be executed or that it amounts to anything, then this is a
vain business in which we are engaged and we had better spend our time in
something that is of some practical utility.
The preamble of this bill promises very finely. I desire to read it :
" Whereas common justice requires that, so far as practicable, all citizens
duly qualified shall be allowed equal opportunities, on grounds of personal
fitness, for securing appointments, employment, and promotion in the subor-
dinate civil service of the United States."
That is very broad. It would seem to be a very good doctrine. But I con-
fess I was struck when I looked further over and saw that in the very teeth-
of that recital of the proper principle the competitive examinations are lim-
ited to the lowest grade of offices. That means, I suppose, that it is justice
in case of the lowest grade to give everybody a chance; but above that the
benefit must be confined to tlie inner circle, those who have held office a long
time and want to continue to hold it; in other words, to Republicans.
Again the preamble says :
*' Whereas justice to the public likewise requires that the Government shall
have the largest choice among those likely to answer the requirements of the
public service."
That is good doctrine, but the body of the act is in the teeth of it. The
Government should have the largest choice among those likely to answer the
requirements as to qualifications for office, and yet you limit the choice of
the Government in the body of the bill to the lowest grade.
Again :
" Whereas justice, as well as economy, efficiency, and integrity in the pub-
lic service, will be promoted by substituting open and uniform competitive
examinations for the examinations heretofore held in pursuance of the stat-
utes of 1853 and 1855."
Economy, efficiency, and tlie integrity of the service will be promoted,
says the preamble, by substituting competitive examinations, and yet the
body of the bill denies the competitive examination, so far as the public gen-
erally are concerned, to all persons except for the lowest grade of offices.
But reference has been made here to the letter and doctrines of Mr. Jeffer-
son on this question. He has been cited as authority, and he is very high
authority ou any subject that he ever handled. There are certain expres-
sions in his letter to Mr. Lincoln that are warped to mean that removals
should take place for cause only, and that qualifications and fitness alone
should be looked to. Mr. Jefferson made very important qualifications of
that doctrine in that letter. I propose to read a portion of it. He speaks of
the action of the leaders of the Federal party at the time, and says : (See
720 APPENDIX.
his letter to Levi Lincoln, dated 25th of October, 1S02, vol. 4 Jefferson's
works, pacje 45U.) *
"Tliey are trying slanders now wliich nothing could prompt hut a gall
wliich blinds their judgments as Wfll as their consciences. 1 .shall take no
other revenge than by a steady pursuit of economy and peace, and l)y tlie es-
ta')li>lunenl of Republican principles in substance and in torni, to sink Fed-
eralism into an abyss from which there shall be no resurrection for it. I still
think our original idea as to office is best: that is, depend for the obtaining
a just participat on on deaths, resignations, and delinquencies."
But Mr. .Jefferson says more than that:
" This will least affect the tranquillity of the people and prevent their giv-
ing in to the suggestion of our enemies, that ours has been a contest for office,
not for jirinciple. This is rather a slow operation " — and if he had been
confined to the lowest griide of office alone he would have thouglit it a great
deal slower — '* but it is sure if we pursue it steadily, which, however, has
not been done with the undeviating resolution I could have wished."
Mr. .Jefferson only waited for deaths, resignations, and delinquencies.
When these came a Republican, as tlie Democrats were then called, was to
be put into ofRce. He declares that was very slow. And what does this bill
do? It waits in the same manner for deaths, resignations, or delinquencies,
but only in the lower grades. It does not give us the chance of putting in a
Democrat in every grade that bec<tmes vacant, because the compeiitive ex-
amination must be from those in office at the time; for all above the lowest
grade. It confines us to the lowest grade. What would Mr. Jefferson have
said if there had been an attemjit to confine him to the lowest grade in fill-
ing offices where vacancies occuired in the manner already designated? He
would have thought it was a great deal slower than the slowness of which he
complained.
Ai^ain, lie said :
'• To these means of obtaining a just share in the transaction of the public
business shall be added one other, to wit, removal for electioneering ac-
tivity."
What would he have said to the hundreds of clerks who are given time
when elections cmne on to go to Ohio and the extreme limits, wlierever there
is a Republican State, to take an active part in controlling the Slate elections?
Would he not have swept the last one of them from office?
He adds : _
"Or open and industrious opposition to the principles of the present Gov-
ernment, legislative, and executive."
If tliey took an active part in politics again.st him, or if they were open in
opposition to the principles of the party in power administering the Govern-
ment they were to go by the board. Hear him again:
" Every officer of the Government may vote at elections according to his
conscience ; but we should betray the cause committed to our care nei-e we to
permit the influence of official patronage to be used to overthrow that cause.
Your present situation will enable yon to judge of prominent offenders in
your State, in the case of the present election."
" Prominent offenders in your State." That is, those who had taken a
j)rominent part against his party in Connecticut. That was what he meant,
and it would be left to Mr. Lincoln to judge of those who had been promi-
nent in that way. Then he adds :
" I pray you to seek thetn, to mark them, to be quite sure of your ground,
that we may commit no error or wrong, and leave the rest to me."
He was President and said, "Seek them; mark them; be qiiite sure of
your ground, and then leave the rest" to him ; he would take care of it.
APPENDIX. ' 721
Again he says :
" 1 have been urged to remove Mr. Whittemore, the surveyor of Glouces-
ter, on grounds of neglect of duty and industrious opposition. Yet no fiicts
are so distinctly charged as to make the step sure wliich we should take in
this. Will you take the trouble to satisfy yourself on this point? I think it
not amiss that it should be known that we are determined to remove officers
who are active or open-mouthed against the Government, by which I mean
the Legislature as well as the Executive."
Mark his language. He thought it not amiss that it should be known that
they were determined to remove from office those who had been active and
open-mouthed against the Government, whether in the legislative or the ex-
ecutive department. That was the sort of civil service that Mr. Jefferson ad-
vocated ; that was the advice he gave to his friend Lincoln of Connecticut;
and mind you, he says, " Mark them, and leave the rest to me." And so it
will be, no matter what civil-service bill you may pass; whenever the Presi-
dent and the heads of Departments desire to do so they will mark them, aud
they will find a way of getting rid of them.
Now, Mr. President, one word as to the natural inherent justice of this
case aside from all political views of it, or any partisan view ; what is right,
what is just. According to this preamble it is right and just that men should
take their chances in procuring office, and have a fair ciiance in accordance
with their ability, their intelligence, and their fitness for the place; all tax-
payers and all citizens should stand upon grounds of equality, taking chances
alike, with no favored class and no proscribed class.
What is the state of things in this Republican Government of ours ?
There are now, it is said, about 55,000,000 jieople; there are about 110 000
officei's and persons holding employment under the Government, and those
places are held by Kepublicans almost invariably.
It is true the senator from Massachusetts told us a while ago that the
President of the United States now stands pledged to sign and support a
measure for civil-service reform. Why does he stand so? VVhat new-born
idea has put him on that platform? I speak kindly of him personally, for I
have great regard for him; but his political course we have aright to discuss.
What administration, at any time since the foundation of this Government,
has ever been more proscriptive, so far as appointments to office are concerned ?
How many Democrats has he left in, holding offices of any importance?
Some of his predecessors were more liberal on that subject. But when he came
in I presume those having influence required of him that he should make a
clean sweep, and he has made it as near as any administration ever can.
What, then, is the modest proposition here? It is to give to the Repub-
lican party, according to the theory of the advocates of the bill, especially the
theory of the senator from Massachusetts, a permanency in these offices.
AVhat is the Republican party of this country? It is a minority of the peo-
ple of this country. In 1876 Samuel J. Tiiden was elected President of
these United States, and he got a popular majority of about 250,000. In
1880 James A. Garfield was legally and constitutionally elected President of
these United States, but he was elected by a plurality only ; adding the Dem-
ocratic vote and the Greenback vote together, he was beaten on the popular
vote by over 300,000 majority.
The Republican party, then, are a minority of the people of the United
States, and yet they hold to-day almost all the offices connected with the
Government of the United States, Is it right, Mr. President, as a naked
question of justice, equity, and fair play, that this state of things should
continue? They have had this advantage for twenty-two years. How long
has this minority a divine right to govern this country ?
46
722 APPENDIX.
No, if we are to have a just and equitable civil-service reform let it be a
reform of tlie abuses of the l)arty that has so long wielded the power of the
Government, and let that reform be put upon tlie basis that in future com-
petitive examinations when you ascertain the two highest the Democrat
shall be preferred until one-half the office-holders are Democrats. I can Fee
an equity in that; not if you confine it, however, as this bill does, to the
lowest grade of officers; but if you will throw all the offices in these depart-
ments open to competition when vacancies occur, and then take the two
highest and give the preference to the Democrat until the Democrats have
half the offices, there is something like a just and equitable civil service.
You would have to give the Greenback party some portion, but I am willing
to meet this question anywhere upon the equity and justice of the case. I do
not fear to go before the populace upon it and say that I do not favor this
policy of civil service, because of its injustice, its inequality, and its want of
equity. The Democrats perform their part of the duties and bear their part
of the burdens of this Government; they pay their portion of the taxes;
they do their part of the military service; in a word, they do faithfully the
duties incumbent upon citizens.
Why is it then that they should be proscribed not only for the long period,
when it has already been so, but for all future time? Why are they not
worthy of their part in the patronage and offices of the Government if they
bear their part in the burdens of the Government? Will some senator who
is so anxious for this civil-service reform please tell me why it is that the
Democrats have no equity, no rights as a class? I know it has become popu-
lar to prate about civil-service reform. We have had it in President's mes-
sages and in reports of heads of the departments until it is in everybody's
mouth, and yet how delusive. In practice it amounted to nothing from the
very commencement, and now this bill proposes to make it an engine of in-
equality, injustice, and wrong to the larger half of the tax-payers and voters
and people of the United States.
I will give my sanction to no such measure, and if no other man in this
Chamber votes against it I will pride myself in recording my vote against a
ineasure that proscribes a majority of the people of the United States, with
which majority I act, and drives them from public positions for almost a
generation to come, opens the way to the lowest grades that we may come
into the lowest positions only, and leaves the balance to those already in,
who are all Republicans. I treat it on its equities, I treat it on its justice,
and denounce it as unfair, as fraught with wrong, injustice, and inequality,
and I ask any one who can to defend it as a principle of equity. If the
Democracy had been twenty two years in power, and had the control of the
offices and patronage of this Government, I say to my colleagues on this side
you would hear a different voice from the other side, in my opinion ; I think
they would see, and have no difficulty in reaching the conclusion, that the bill
was unjust, unequal, and ought not to pass.
I have noticed ever since [ have had tlie honor to occupy a seat on this
floor, that the Republicans have touched this question a little tenderly, and
it has been kept before the popular mind in a very gentle manner all the
while, by messages and reports, and so on ; but when it came right down to
action they were a little dilatory about it. But since the elections of
November last their energies have been quickened, their convictions have
been strengthened, and to-day they are not only almost persuaded, but they
are full converts to the doctrine that civil-service reform is imperatively
necessary, and necessary just at this particular time.
I do not blame them. I do not see that their course is what it ought to
be, if we go ou the principles of justice and equality; but as a party measure.
APPENDIX. 723
if we will sit here and permit them to enact such a law, I cannot blame them
for doing it. The Democrats will not hold them responsible, they will hold
ns responsible for it ; and the Republicans, looking to the action of their
senators, no doubt will applaud their energy and their skill in providing for
their office-holders for a lifetime in the future, just as the period has come
when there is danger that they may have to leave.
But there is another provision in connection with this bill which may re-
quire some attention. The country has been greatly shocked by the prac-
tices of the Republican party, by their levying assessments upon subordinates
in the various offices of the Government to be used for political purposes,
and both sides seem now to agree on the propriety of enacting stringent laws
against such a practice in future. In other words, we propose in future to
make it highly penal, if not a penitentiary crime, for any officer or commit-
tee to do what the Republican committee did in the last campaign. And
while I deny that the great majority of the people of the United States have
either clamored or called for a civil-service measure of the character con-
templated by this act, I admit that there is a general demand for the enact-
ment of a law to punish, and punish severely, the practice of soliciting and
virtually compelling donations of part of their salaries from subordinates in
the different departments. But why pass a civil-service bill of the character
of this to get that provision into it? Why not meet the question fairly and
squarely, like bold, sensible men, and amend the penal code of the United
States by the enactment of a law providing ample punishment for those who
practice this system in future? No civil-service bill is necessary. It wants a
penal statute to make the infamous practice a high misdemeanor, if not a
telony. Those who claim that the people at the last election not only con-
demned the corrupt methods and practices of the Republican party ; but
that they demand the so-called civil-service reform contemplated by this bill
as a remedy, make a great mistake. The corrupt practices have been con-
demned. The people have spoken in thunder tones of condemnation and
denunciation, which can neither be ignored nor misunderstood. They de-
nounce the admitted malpractice of Republican officials, and demand a
remedy. But what remedy ? Not that we pass a law to continue the perpe-
trators of these great wrongs in office for life or a term of years. The party
to which they belong has held power twenty-two j'ears. It is time there was
a change. And the peoj^le demand as a remedy for existing abuses, a
change of officials. They demand that the unfaithful public servant, whose
maladministration cannot be denied, be hurled from power, and that their
places be filled by honest, capable men, who will reform the public service by
a return to the purer and better methods practiced by the fathers of the re-
public; who will cut off all surplus and unnecessary officials, clerks, and em-
ployes ; and all extravagant waste of the public treasure, which is wrung by
taxation from the labor of the people.
But, Mr. President, I am aware that I have already occupied the floor too
long. Before taking my seat, however, I desire to announce certain amend-
ments that at the proper time, whenever I can get an opportunity, I propose-
to offer to this bilL On line 22, section 2, page 3, I find this language :
" Third, that original entrance to the public service aforesaid shall be at
the lowest grade, and appointments thereto in the departments at Washing-
ton shall be apportioned, as nearly as practicable, among the several States and
Territories and the District of Columbia, upon the basis of population ascer-
tained at the last preceding census."
There I shall move to strike out the words "shall be at the lowest grade,"
so as to read :
724 APPENDIX.
" That original entrance to the public service aforesaid and appointments
thereto in the departments at Washington shall be apportioned, etc."
Then I find, on page 4, section 2, line 30, this language :
" Filth, that promotions shall be from the lower grades to the higher on
the basis of merit and competition."
1 shall move to strike that out entirely.
Then on page 10. in section 7, I find this language :
"Tliat after tlie expiration of six months from the passage of this act no
officer or clerk shall be appointed, and no person shall be employed to enter
or be promoted in either of the said classes now existing, or that may be ar-
ranged hereunder pursuant to said rules, until he has passed an examination,
or is shown to be specially exempted from such examination in conformity
herewith."
There I shall move to add :
" Whenever a vacancy occurs in either of said classes it shall be filled with
one o[ the two persons who stood highest on the competitive examination, and
the selection for appointment shall not be confined to the persons in the office,
or who at the time hold positions under the department in which the vacancy
occurs, but other persons, citizens, desiring the position shall, on application,
be permitted to participate in the competitive examination, and shall receive
the appointment if the examination shows that they possess qualiticationssupe-
rior to the competitors who may be in position at the time of the examination."
In other words my object is^ to get rid of that feature which confines the
competitive examinations to the applicants for the lowest class. Why should
not a person occupying no position under the Government, who is eminently
qualified, have a right to apply for a vacancy in a higher class? 1 know no
reason except that he is a Democrat, and he must not interfere with the in-
ner circle or with the political power of it. I want to open the door wide, if
we have competitive examinations, and let every citizen who feels that he
has claims superior to an inferior man now in position go and compete for
the prize, and if he wins it, though he be a Democrat, let him have it. I
think this is right. I do not feel that I should do my duty if I were to sit
here and see this bill pass without doing all in my power to see that justice
is done to the larger half of the people of this country in giving them an
actual chance to compete for these positions. The bill, as it now stands,
does not give it. I seek to amend it so that all who feel that they are really
qualified shall have a chance for the offices.
I know there are stringent provisions in the bill about any one doing any-
thing to promote the claim of one applicant or injure the claim of another.
There is simply nothing in that. The head of a department may give
stringent orders to have everything go right, but he has men under hi'm who
have been there probably for twenty years, shrewd, sharp managing fellows,
and they will find a way to get the preference given by examiners to a favorite
who is wanted by them and against those they do not want. You will never
purify this service until you drive tliese old rats from the malt. You will
never purify it as long as those who have had control of things for a long
time wield the power. They have had it long enough. If the Democrats
come into power let all the worst of tliem retire. We have plenty of men
every way their equals, socially, morally, intellectually, educationally, in any
way you may put it. Why, then, shou'ld Democrats take a position in favor
of proscribing men of that class of our own party, and keep in power those of
the other party who have for so long a time been in office?
I do not know, Mr. I'lesident, whether there is any other amendment
pending at the present time that has preference over those I have mentioned
or not. If there is not —
APPENDIX. 725
The presiding oflBcer (Mr, Morgan in the chair). The amendment of the
senator from Iowa [Mr. Allison] is pending.
Mr. Brown. Then I give notice that I shall propose these amendments
when they are in order.
Mr. Hawley. Before the senator passes from the point he has been just
discussing, I should like to make a suggestion to him in the form of a ques-
tion. There are in the departments quite a considerable number of Demo-
cratic employes and clerks, and some of them have been there ten, fifteen,
twenty, twenty-five years. Xow, I wish to know whether their continuance
in the service with the testimonial in their favor that it has been under an
adverse Administration because of their admirable record, whether the fact
that they have been a long time in the service is so much against them that
the senator would turn them out also?
Mr. Brown. I would put them on their merits, Mr. President. If their
practices were clean and their conduct right, if they had behaved themselves
well, I would not turn them out simply because they held office under Re-
publicans, and I would not probably turn out every Republican there who
held an office and showed a fair and clean record; but I would do this: I
would so amend this bill that any one outside who was the superior of either
of them might come in and compete for the place, and if he took it by virtue
of his merits and his qualifications over either a Democrat or a Republican I
would let him do so. This would be true civil-seivice reform. Both parties
must be fairly represented in the offices before any such enactment will meet
with public favor or produce any beneficial results.
If my amendments are not acted on this afternoon, I shall ask that they
be printed and laid on the table by the morning session.
Speech of Hon. Joseph E. Brown, of Geougia, delivered in the
Senatk of the United States, January 8, 1883, on the Rights
OF THE Citizens of the late^ Confederate States to the
$10,000,000 NOW IN the Treasury, which is the Proceeds of
the Sale of thf.ir Cotton and other Property seized by the
Agents of the Government, the Ekfkct of the President's
Pardon on their Rights considered, etc.
The Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, resumed the consideration of the bill
(H. R. 084) to afford assistance and relief to Congress and the Executive departments
in their investigation of claims and demands against the Government.
Mr. Brown said ;
Mr. President : I desire to give notice first of an amendment which I shall
offer to the bill whenever it is in order to consider it. I wish to have the
amendment read :
The Principal Legislative Clerk. It is proposed to add as an additional
section to the bill the following :
Sec. — . That the right of action in said Court of Claims under the provisions of
the captured and abandoned property acts, where the monej' arising from the sale
of the property is now in the Treasury of the United States, be, and the same hereby
is, revived and extended for two years from and after the passage of this act, includ-
ing all cases of seizure under said act, or under color thereof, vv'ithout regard to any
statute of limitations; and all claims for such property not filed in said court within
that period shall be forever barred: Provided, hoivevtr, That where any of such claims
have been filed before the Secretary of the Treasury, and pi-oof taken in relation
thereto, under the provisions of the fifth section of the act of May 18. 1872, the proof
so taken, whether upon the part of the Government or the claimant, where it is made
26 APPENDIX.
to appear by affidavit that the witnesses are dead or cannot be found, shall be used
in evidence in the said Court of Claims as though taken in pursuance of the rules of
said court, and the Secretary of the Treasury, upon the call of said court, on the
motion of either party, shall transmit said proofs and all the papers in the case to the
said Court of Claims.
T think the bill before the senate to refer the large number of claims of
different character.*, involving investigations of questions of fact, to be
audited at least by the Court of Claims, for I believe that is about the effect
of the bill, is a good one in its main features.
I do not approve, however, of the section that requires of the suitor in
that court, or the claimant, any proof as to his loyalty during the war. I
deny, under the Constitution and laws and the amnesty proclamations of the
Pre.sident, that any such proof can be required of the claimant who did par-
ticipate in the rebellion. That question has been before the Supreme Court
of the United States again and again, and that court has decided the iden-
tical question, as I understand it, that a claimant who did participate in the
rebellion, and who has been pardoned by the President of the United States,
may prefer his claim in the Court of Claims without the allegation or proof
that he did not participate in the rebellion.
Therefore I think that provision of the bill now before the senate is ob-
jectionable in a twofold sense : one, that it would be a violation of the Con-
stitution, of the proclamations of the President, and the laws as they now
stand; and another, that it tends all the while to keep up the distinction be-
tween those who were once engaged in rebellion, as it is now termed, and citi-
zens who were not so engaged, though all are now loyal, all are enjoying alike
the privileges of the Government, and each sharing his part in its burdens.
Mr. Cameron, of Wisconsin. Will it interrupt the senator if I ask him a
question?
Mr. Brown. No, not if you confine it to a question. This is a subject
that we differ, probably, a good deal about, and I would prefer to proceed
with my argument without too many interruptions, though I am not captious
about it. I will hear the senator.
Mr. Cameron, of Wisconsin. Has the senator ever looked at the question
in this view : that the decisions of the Supreme Court to which he refers had
reference to a court that had jurisdiction to render a judgment in the case?
Under this bill the Court of Claims has not authority to render judgment,
but merely to find the facts and report the facts to Congress; and in the
cases that are referred to that court by departments of the Government they
are required to find the facts and the law. Suppose Congress, instead of
referring these cases to the Court of Claims, had said, " We will refer them
to the Attorney-General and impose upon him the duty of examining them
and reporting the facts to Congress," would or would not that be constitu-
tional, and would not Congress have a right to refer any class of cases that
it pleased to the Attorney-(Jeneral if it saw fit to do so?
Mr. Frye. If the senator will pardon me one moment, as 1 tinderstood
the amemlment offered by hiui it goes the full length; it gives full and com-
plete jurisdiction to the Court of Claims in the abandoned property claims.
That is as I understand the amendment.
Mr. Brown. I prefer to proceed with my argument in my own way. 1
think I shall cover all the ground, before I take my seat, that senators have
called my attention to, and it rather breaks the thread of my argument and
disjoints the different propositions that I may have connected together to
have to submit to frequent interruptions. As I say, I am always willing to
be interrupted if it is thought important by any senator, hut I shall cover
the ground mentioned by both the senators before I take my seat.
APPENDIX. 727
Now, Mr. President, before I proceed further with the discussion, I desire
to remark that at tlie opening of the last session of Congress there -were two
funds lying in the Treasury of the United States, each in amount about
$10,000,000, to which the Government of the United States set up no just or
equitable claim, but the authorities of the United States adtnitted tliat the
money belonged to private individuals or firms, persons in legal contempla-
tion, either artificial or to natural persons.
One of these funds was known as the Geneva award fund. We had held
a convention with Great Britain, and had agreed upon an arbitration of the
mutual claims and charges that each government had against the other,
especially pertaining to matters growing out of the action and conduct of
the Confederate cruisers during the war.
The award given to the United States by the arbitrators was, as we
thought, a liberal one — fifteen and a half million dollars. Something over
five millions, or from five to seven millions, of that amount paid all the
claims that the loyal people of the United States, as they were termed and
known during the war, the ship-owners and those engaged in transportation
upon the high seas, had suffered so far as related to property captured or
destroyed. After all that was paid tiiere was a balance of about ten millions
left in the Treasury. It was claimed, and as I thought justly, by the people
of the New England States and of the ^liddle States mostly, for they were
generally the parties in interest — there nniy have been some exceptions —
that they ought to have the balance of that amount on account of losses that
they had sustained during the war, not by the actual seizures of their prop-
erty by the Confederate cruisers upon the high seas, but that they had su.s-
tained heavy losses on account of marine insurance and war risks that they
had to pay as merchants during the war. For instance, there were two
merchants in New York trading abroad ; one put his goods under a foreign
flag, brought them here on Pinglish bottoms, and he got a very low rate of
insurance because there was no war risk. Another merchant next door
shipped articles of like character from foreign ports to ports in the United
States, and he chose to ship them on American bottoms. They were suliject
to capture by the Confederate cruisers, and he had to pay 3, 4, or 5 per cent,
more insurance upon them. He claimed, and it seemed to me very justly,
that he labored under very great disadvantage as compared with his neighbor
because he chose to patronize American vessels and shipped by them, while
his neighbor shipped upon foreign vessels. That class ot citizens came and
asked us — and tliere were other classes which I need not stop to mention —
to pass an act of Congress for their relief, to distribute this balance of about
$10,1)00,000 of the Geneva award that lay in the Treasury of the United
States among the classes of claimants who were thus interested.
There was at that time another fund of about $10,000,000 lying in the
Treasury of the United States that tiie United States had as little or less
claim to than it had to the balance of the Geneva award. That was a fund
which arose from the sale of captured and abandoned property during the
war and during the reconstruction period soon after the war. For months,
and probably I might say a year or two, after the surrender of Lee's and
Johnston's armies, the property of the Southern people had been seized by
the agents of the Ti'easury Department, under the authority of the act of
Congress known as the captured and abandoned property act, and it had
been sold and the proceeds paid into the Treasury of the United States, and
it lay there, not the property of the United States, because, as the Supreme
Court of the United States has said, the United States was trustee for the
true owner of it. It was like the Geneva award fund, only I tliink with a
Btrouger equity against the Government. It lay in the Treasury of the
728 APPENDIX.
United State?, and lies there still. Why did it lie there? Because there
was a statute of limitations, of whicli I shall speak at a later period in my
remarks, that bars the claimant and owners from goin^ into court to recover
this money. So in the case of the Geneva award there was no law which
authorized the claimant to draw it without an act of Congress. Therefore
neither of these large funds in the Trensury, which did not belong to the
United States Government, could be reached without legislation.
When the bill was up to distribute the Geneva award fund I proposed to
offer an amendnjent to it making provision also for the removal of the statute
of limitations, so that this fund belonging to Southern citizens might be
distributed, which lies now in the Treasury of the United States, and which
is not claimed by tlie United States. 1 was asked b^^ one or two senators on
the other side not to do this. They said it would embarrass their case; that
they had their measure then in a shape that it was likely to go through, and
that we should consider this question on its merits .ind do justice at a sub-
sequent period. I acquiesced in that view. As their measure had been
matured and brouglit before Congress, and was in a shape tliat justice might
be done, as I thought, I would not emltarrass it by offering an amendment
requiring the distribution at the same time of both these funds that lay in
the Trea-^ury that ouglit to be in the pockets of citizens of tlie United States.
The result was that the act was passed for the distribution, under proper
restrictions, of the Geneva award fund. Nothing has been done yet, how-
ever, for the relief of citizens of the Southern section of the Union, who own
this other large fund of about equal amount. The first, the Geneva award
fund, went almost exclusively to citizens of what are kuown as the Northera
States, or the Middle and New England States I might say.
Mr. Hoar. Largely in California.
Mr. Brown. The senator says some of it went to California ; at any rate,
all went to what were known during the war as the loyal States. I believe
that is a safe statement. On the other hand, the fund of which I am speak-
ing would go almost exclusively to citizens of the Southern States. But the
equities in each case, I think, are the same; in other words, as the Govern-
ment did not own the fund, and did not claim to own it, and as citizens of
the different sections did own it, tho-e of one section being owners in one
fund, and of the other sections in the other fund, I can see no reason why
there should be a discrimination against citizens of my section ; why money
belonging to them, honestly and legally and justly theirs, should lie in the
Treasury undisturbed because it is necessary to have legislation to remove
the bar of the statute, when in the other case we passed an act of legislation
removing whatever obstacles there might be in the way of the distribution
of the fund. It is admitted that neither could be distributed without
legislation.
Now I say to senators of what were formerly termed the loyal States, that
we from the South interposed no difficulties in the way of your getting the
Geneva-award fund ; most of us voted for your bill, and it has been and is
being distributed, I pre.-^ume, and I think rightly so. Now we appeal to you
to do us the justice to remove this bar of the statute, and let us come in and
get the fund which honestly and fairly and justly belongs to our people,
many of them widows and orphans. Remove the bar of the statute, and let
us draw that fund, and let it go to those who are entitled to it.
Mr. Hoar. How much is that fund?
Mr. Brown. I do not know the exact sum ; I understand it is about
$10 000,000, nearly the same amount that lay in the Treasury in case of the
Geneva award undistributed. The two funds were practically of equal
amount.
APPENDIX. 729
It has been said that this cannot be done because many of these claimants
participated in the rebellion and forfeited their rights to sue in the courts,
and that they cannot come now and claim the benefit of the fund on that
account, even if the bar of the statute of limitations were removed.
Now, a word as to the bar of the statute. In March, 1863, the Congress
of the United States passed a law known as the cnptured and abandoned
property act, which was peculiar in its provisions. It authorized the Secre-
tary of the Treasury to send his agents into the insiuM-ectionary States and
seize the property of the citizens of those States which were then regarded
as in rebellion, and so declared by the authorities of the United States, with
the exception of such property as munitions of war, vessels used for the pro-
motion of the rebellion, and other property of that character, which Treasury
agents had no right to seize, because such property if seized by the armies
would become ipso facto the property of the United States. 1 should say,
however, that prior to the passage of that act there had been one or more
acts of Congress passed declaring the property of those in rebellion subject
to confiscation, and tribunals had been provided for carrying that law into
execution and confiscating the property of rebels.
But I ask senators to bear in mind that confiscation was not accomplished
simply by act of Congress, nor could it be. It could only be done by trial
and judgment in some court authorized by Congress to adjudicate the case.
In other words, Congress had no right to declare any man a rebel and
adjudge that he was guilty of treason without a trial in court, and Congress
had no right to take the private property of any one in rebellion and forfeit
it by act of Congress. It could only be done by a proper proceeding in the
courts, unless it was such property as was used in carrying on military opera-
tions.
And I will here remark that the Government of the United States had
adopted the modei'u law of nations on this question. They did not act on
the practice that the private property of non-combatant enemies was liable
to seizure as booty of war. Therefore they had no right, unless they de-
parted from that wise and humane and just rule now practiced by modern
civilized nations, to seize and confiscate the property of non-combatant ene-
mies as booty of war, but must if they seized it make just compensation
for it.
Chief Justice Chase, delivering the opinion of the court, said in the case
of the United States vs. Klein, 13 Wallace, page 137 :
"The Government recognized to the fullest extent the humane maxims of
the modern law of nations, which exempt private property of non-combatant
enemies from capture as booty of war."
Then according to the opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States,
as delivered by a Republican chief justice, who was an able statesman and an
enlightened jurist, the Government practiced upon the rule that the private
property of non-combatant enemies was exempt from seizui-e as booty. If
this was so, of course it followed that it could not be taken without com-
pensation.
That being the practice of the Government, it had no right to seize the
property of non-combatants in the Soutliern States tliat were declared in
rebellion and appropriate it to the uses of the Government of the United
States without paying just compensation, as required by the Constitution.
In other words, the Government was applying, and must apply if it complied
with this modern rule of the law of nations, the same rule to the Southern
rebel, as he was termed, who was engaged in war against the United States,
that it would have applied to a subject of Great Britain or a citizen of
Mexico if we had been at war with either of those powers. What would
730 APPENDIX.
have been the rule there ? It would have been that the property of non-com-
batants seized for the uses of tlie army, where it w;is not of the cliaracter of
ordnance, military stores, or the like, must be paid for by tlie Govt-rnment.
This is a necessary conclusion from the doctrine laid down by the chief
justice already quoted.
^ But there were stronper reasons here why it should be so. No particular
citizen of the South was known to the law to be in rebellion ; no one of them
was a traitor until he was tried and a competent court pronounced him such
by its judgment. Then he became legally a traitor, and then his property
might be confiscated or taken by a proper proceeding in court under a judg-
ment of the court, but this could not be done as long as lie was a citizen of
the United States not convicted of treason, and he was, according to the
theory of the Government, notwithstanding we had seceded, still a citizen,
but a citizen in rebellion. The Constitution fixes that point and I desire to
read it; I read from the fifth article of the amendments :
" No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous
crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases
arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in
time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same
offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in
any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life,
liberty, or property, without due process of law ; nor shall private property
be taken for pul)lic use, without just compensation."
Therefore so long as he was a citizen the Government had no right to take
his private property without paying him just compensation, unless he was
convicted and deprived of his property by due process of law.
That being the status then of our people at and near the termination of the
war, the Government had the right to proceed against a citizen who had par-
ticipated in the rebellion as a rebel, and it had a riglit to push the case to
the extent of the forfeiture of his property if his guilt were legally established.
The forfeiture would have been subject to the provision of the Constitution
of the United States. It had the right to proceed against him as a rebel if
it chose to do so. The Government did not choose to do this in all ciises.
Indeed there was lejral condemnation of property in but few cases.
"What was the action of the Government? Tlie executive of the United
States, who had the pardoning power, interposed his pardon first to certain
classes; or rather I might say that Mr. Lincoln's proclamation at first em-
braced everybody in rebellion who came in and took an oath and complied
with certain conditions. Then at the end of the war — by the end of the war
now I mean tlie surrender of Lee and Johnston — President Johnson issued
his proclamation of pardon embracing almost allcitizens of the United States,
except certain classes upon whom he imposed certain restrictions and terms
before tliey could be pardoned. At a subsequent period he finally issued a
proclamation extending pardon and amnesty to every i>erson who had
engaged in the rebellion with full and perfect restoration of all his civil
rights and rights of property. When this was done by the Presid.nt of the
United States, we were all placed back again, so far as our rights in the
courts and our rights of property and our rights as citizens were concerned,
upon exactly the same basis as any citizen who had never engaged in
rebellion.
I want to refer to some authority on that point. I take the position that
the pardon not only relieved the person pardoned, the person who had been
in rebellion, from punishment, but it relieved him of every disability, and
where it was a full pardon, and went to the extent of restoration of civil
rights and rights of property, it placed him exactly in the same legal position
APPENDIX. 731
which he would have occupied if he had never committed the offence. I will
read a little authority on that question, which is doubtless familiar to the
senate, but it comes in the line of my argument, and I prefer to refer to it.
The first is the case of ex parte Garland, 4 Wallace, page 330. The Supreme
Court says :
" The Constitution provides that the President ' shall have power to grant
reprieves and pardons for offences against the United States, except in cases
of impeachment.' The power thus conferred is unlimited, with the excep-
tion stated. It extends to every offence known to tlie law, and may be exer-
cised at any time after its commission, either before legal proceedings are
taken, or during their pendency, or after conviction and judgment. This
power of the President is not subject to legislative control. Congress can neither
limit the effect of his pardon nor exclude from its exercise any class of
offenders. The benign prerogative of mercy reposed in him cannot be
fettered by any legislative restrictions.
"Such being the case, the inquiry arises as to the effect and operation of a
pardon, and on this point all the authorities concur. A pardon reaches both
the punishment prescribed for the offence and the guilt of the offender ; and
when the pardon is full it releases the punishment and blots out of existence
tiie guilt, so that in the eye of the law the offender is as innocent as if he
had never committed the offence. If granted before conviction, it prevents
any of the penalties and disabilities consequent upon conviction from attach-
ing; if granted after conviction, it removes the peualties and disabilities and
restores him to all his civil rights ; it makes him, as it were, a new man and
gives him a new credit and capacity.
"There is only this limitation to its operation, it does not restore offices
forfeited or property or interests vested in others in consequence of the con-
viction and judgment.
•' The pardon produced by the petitioner is a full pardon ' for all offences
by him committed, arising from participation, direct or implied, in the rebel-
lion,' and is subject to certain conditions, which have been complied with.
The effect of this pardon is to relieve the petitioner from all penalties and
disabilities attached to the offence of treason committed by his participation
in the rebellion. So far as that offence is concerned, he is thus placed beyond
the reach of punishment of any kind. But to exclude him by reason of that
offence fioin continuing in the enjoyment of a previously acquired right is to
enforce a punishment for that offence notwithstanding the pardon. If such
exclusion can be effected by the exaction of an expurgatory oath covering
the offence, the pardon may be avoided, and that accomplished indirectly
which cannot be reached by direct legislation. It is not within the constitu-
tional power of Congress thus to inflict punishment beyond the reach of exec-
utive clemency. From the petitioner, therefore, the oath required by the
act of January 24, 1865. could not be exacted, even if that act were not sub-
ject to any other objection than the one thus stated."
Mr. Morgan. I shotjld like to ask the senator from Georgia if he holds
that if the property of a man who was engaged in tlie rebellion has been con-
fiscated by the judgment of a court and that person is subsequently pardoned,
that pardon has such relation back as to restore him to his rights of prop-
erty notwithstanding the judgment of that court? That is the question I
desire to ask the senator.
Mr. Brown. I will reply in the language of the Supreme Court just read :
"There is only tliis limitation to its operation, it does not restore offices
forfeited or property or interests vested in others in consequence of the
conviction and judgment."
There is no other exception ; offices forfeited are not restored by the par-
732 APPENDIX.
don, and so far as the rights of others are concerned — for instance, inform-
ers— the pardon does not interfere with the riglits of third persons; but so
far as property forfeited by the judgment of the courts is concerned, if the
rights of third persons have not attached, the pardon, I hold, restores the
property forfeited and restores the party to all the rights that he had as
though he had never committed the offence.
Mr. Morgan. The senator holds then, that notvi^ithstanding there is a valid
judgment of confiscation which remains unexecuted because the property
has not been sold, the pardon of the President reverses and annuls that
judgment?
Mr. Brown. I do ; just as it reverses the judgment of conviction of
treason.
Mr. Morgan. I am sorry I cannot agree with the senator in that proposi-
tion. By parity of reasoning also, why can he not hold that after property
had been lawfully captured by an army in the field during the war, and had
been consumed by that army after having been captured from an enemy,
afterward the pardon of the Pi-esident of a man who was then engaged in
rebellion would restore him or give him a right of action against the Govern-
ment for the property thus destroyed? I do not believe that the pardoning
power has that extent.
Mr. Brown. I should prefer that the senator, as the senators on the other
side have done, would make his interruptions as short as he can conveniently.
Mr. Morgan. I beg pardon.
Mr. Brown. I do not object to my attention being drawn to the point. I
will state in reply to the senator, however, that it is not important to the
objects of this discussion whether I be right or whether he be right on the
point already mentioned, because the money T design to reach now for those
who are entitled to it that ar-ose from the sale of captured and abandoned
property was not money forfeited by any judgment of any court of the United
States. No, it has not been so forfeited. The Supreme Court has decided
over and over again that it was not the intention of Congress to do that be-
cause no provision was made for its confiscation by any court whatever.
Then the point between us is not an important one so far as this question is
concerned.
Mr. Edmunds. Was it not forfeited as prize of war taken on land?
Mr. Brown. I stated distinctly at the outset of my argument that anything
like ordnance or boats or ships used for the purposes of war and small arms
and accoutrements and everything of that kind became the property of the
captor immediately on capture, and in case of vessels, on judgment in the
proper prize court.
Mr. Edmunds. Take the case of private property of enemies of the peo-
ple which was turned into money and put into the Treasury and then came
peace, what then?
Mr. Brown. 1 have just read, while the senator was absent, from the de-
cision of Chief Justice Chase in the case of the United States i-'s. Klein what
he has to say on that subject.
Mr. Edmunds. The senator need not read it again.
Mr. Brown. It relates to the very point to which the senator from Ver-
mont calls my attention and is short, and I will read it for the benefit of the
senator from Vermont.
Chief Justice Chase says :
" The Government recognized to the fullest extent the humane maxims of
the modern law of nations, which exempt private property of non-combatant
enemies from capture as booty of war,"
Was that true ?
APPENDIX. 733
Mr. Edmunds. But suppose there is a capture of booty of war, does it
pertain to any judicial tribunal to undertake to give it back? Suppose the
sovereign war-making power does not choose to recognize this humanity, but
is savage, what then ?
Mr. Brown. Then the party, if he be a citizen of the United States, as
these former rebels were, and the rule was adopted as stated by the chief
justice, piay seek his rights in the courts or before the legislative department
whenever lie can establish that claim. The Constitution of the United States,
which I read while the senator was out, says distinctly that no citizen shall
be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, and tliat
private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation.
Chief Justice Chase says that the Government adopted to the fullest extent
the humane maxims of the modern law of nations, that the property of non-
combatant enemies is not liable to capture as booty of war. 'J'lien if tliese
non-combatant enemies were citizens of the United States, when we come
down to the dry legal question they have rights. But that is not what 1 am
trying to get at now ; I am trying to get money out of the Treasury m hich no
one claims that the Government owns ; which the United States do not
claim ; which the Supreme Court says the Government holds as trustee for the
owners. I am trying to reach that, and nothing more. And it seems to me
that there is no question of the character raised by the senator in the way.
Whatever might be the trouble about a suit brought by any one for property
taken when he was in rebellion — and I do not care to discuss that now — I
think these provisions of the Constitution of the United States and the opin-
ion of Chief Justice Chase would go very far in that direction. But 1 am
only seeking to open the Court of Claims to the owners of the money now in
the Treasury which the Government does not claim. But as 1 stated while
the senator from Vermont was out of the Chamber, this captured and aban-
doned property act was, as the court said, a peculiar one. I desire now to
I'ead a portion of what the court does say on that subject.
1 read from 13 Wallace, page 136. The court says :
" The answer to this question requires a consideration of the rights of
property, as affected by the late civil war, m the hands of citizens engaged
in hostilities against the United States.
" Jt may be said, in general terms, that property in the insurgent States
may be distributed into four classes.
" First. That which belonged to the hostile organizations or was employed
in actual hostilities on land.
" Second. That which at sea became lawful subject of capture and prize.
" Tliird. That which became the subject of confiscation.
" Fourth. A peculiar description, known only in recent war, called cap-
tured and abandoned property."
Now, it is the latter class only that I am dealing with in the amendment
which I have proposed, and therefoie it is not very important to me so far
as the present discussion is concerned how the other questions may be ruled
or what may be the opinion of the senate on them. But the court adds:
"It is thus seen that except to property used in actual hostilities, as men-
tioned in the first section of the act of March 12, 1863, no titles were divested
in the insurgent States unless in pursuance of a judgment rendered after
due legal proceedings." That idea is repeated in other portions of the
opinion. "And it is reasonable to infer " — says the chief justice, on page 138
— " that it was the purpose of Congress that the proceeds of the property for
which the special provision of the act was made should go into tlie Treasury
without change of ownership. Certainly such was the intention in respect to
the property of loyal men. That the same intention prevailed in re-
734 APPENDIX.
gard to the property of owners who. though then hostile, might subsequently
become loyal, appears probable from the circumstance that no provision is
anywhere made for confiscation of it, while there is no trace in the statute-
book of intention to divest ownership of private property not, excepted from
the effect of this act otherwise than by proceedings for confiscation."
Again he says, on the same page :
"In the case of Padelford we held that the right to the possession of private
property was not changed until actual seizure by proper military authority,
and that actual seizure by such authority diil noi divent the title under the pro-
visions of the abandoned and captured property act. The reasons assigned
seem fully to warrant the conclusion. The Government constituted itself
the trustee for those who were by that act declared entitled to the proceeds of
captured and abandoned property, and lor those whom it should thereafter
recognize as entitled."
I have a use for that in the latter part of this argument. The Government
did recognize as entitled all who were pardoned without confiscation of prop-
erty.
Mr. Edmunds. That is, the court said so, not Congress.
Mr. Brown. The court is now speaking of what it understands Congress
to have held; at least lam reading the decision of the court, the decision of
the Supreme Court of the United States, and I suppose as it is the highest
judicial tribunal we have to take its decisions without going further. Again,
on page 139 the chief justice says :
" The property of the original owner is in no case absolutely divested.
There is, as we have already observed, no confiscation, but the proceeds of
the property have passed into possession of the Government, and restora-
tion of the property is pledged to none except to those who have continually
adhered to the Government. Whether restoration will be made to others,
or confiscation will be enforced, is left to be determined by considerations
of public policy subsequently to be developed."
In other words, as I understand the court, they mean that there was pro-
vision in the captured and abandoned property act for a restoration of the
property of all who did not aid or in any way participate in the rebellion.
The property of the disloyal was not confiscated by this act, but its proceeds
were put into the Treasury, the Government remaiuintr, as the chief justice
says, the trustee for the owner ; and the question was held open whether
Congress would direct the courts to proceed and in a legal way confi-cate
the property, or whether a different course should be taken as to the parties
in rebellion who were entitled to the property and they restored to all their
rights, civil and of every other character, with power to go into the courts
and claim their property.
In this connection I desire to state that during the war President Lincoln
i.ssued more than one proclamation tendering amnesty. lie had the autlior-
ity of an a''t of Congress for doing so; but in a mes.^age to Congre.ss he
stateii that tliat gave no additional force to it ; he claimed the absolute
power himself, and that Congress had no control over the pardoning power.
He issued his proclamation declaring that all persons who would then Iny
down their arms and return to their allegiance, who, of course, could not
swear that they had never taken any part against the Government, should be
pardoned and restored to all their civil rights and rights of property. Padel-
ford was one of the persons who availed themselves of this amnesty, the case
to which the chief justice refers Klein's case, from which I liave just read m
13 Wallace.
Mr. Cameron, of Wi'^consin. Padelford's property was taken after he
had taken the oath of allegiance, nut before.
APPENDIX. 735
Mr. Brown. So I am aware.
Mr. Edmunds. That was the property of a loyal citizen.
Mr. Brown. That is the very point. Padf Iford's property was taken
after lie had taken the oath of alleginnce, and therefore it was as the sena-
tor from Vermont says, the property of a loyal citizen, which I grant. Pad-
elford had aided the rebellion and was pardoned. His property was the
property of a loyal citizen only because he was pardoned. The property of
every other Confederate who participated in the rebellion and who has been
restored by the pardon of the Piesident to all his riglits of property becomes the
property of a loyal citizi-n in like manner and for the same reason, and tiierefore
he has a right in each case to go into court and claim his property. Congress
has no right to interfere with the effects of that pardon, to destroy its legal
consequences, to limit, abridge, or in any way take from the person to whom
it was extended the full extent of the force and the benefits of the pardon.
That was attempted by the Drake amendment, as is well known to sena-
tors, and was the very point in the case wliich I have been reading in 13
Wallace. The Drake amendment proposed in substance
Mr. Edmunds. That the Court of Claims should not have jurisdiction of
certain class of claims. The Supreme Court said they should, although the
act of Congress forbade it.
Mr. Brown. I will take the language of the chief justice on that:
"The substance of this enactment is that an acceptance of a pardon with-
out disclaimer shall be conclusive evidence of the acts pardoned, but shall be
null and void as evidence of the rights conferred by it, both in the Court of
Claims and in this court on appeal."
The Drake amendment, therefore, attempted to exclude the pardoned per-
pon from a portion of the benefits of his pardon by denying to him the right
to plead his pardon or introduce his pardon as evidence in a case before the
Court of Claims. The Drake amendment laid down the rule that the pardon
was good as proof that the claimant had participated in the rebellion if he
accepted it without any qualification or protestation, but that it should not
be given in evidence in any case where he could use it for the protection of
his rights in court.
Mr. Hoar. May T ask the honorable senator a question?
Mr. Brown, if it is a short one.
Mr Hoar. It will be, pt^rhaps a short one. I was a member of the com-
mittee that reported this bill. I should like to ask the honorable senator if he
supposes it would be illegal for Congre.ss to direct the attorney-general to ex-
amine and report the facts on a certain cla.ss of claims against the Govern-
ment except those which arose in the State of Mississippi, or except those
where the persons making them had taken part in the rebellion?
Mr. Edmunds. Or had red hair.
Mr. Hoar. Before the senator answers the question I will make a state-
ment. We do not understand — perhaps we are wrong — that in this bill we
are giving jurisdiction to a court or that any citizen is coming before a court
with a legal right. In the Drake amendment there was a judgment of the
Supreme Court of the United States on appeal from the Court of Claims pro-
vided for, and the Supreme Court, whether right or not, came to the conclu-
sion that the senator has stated ; but this committee have framed this bill
under the belief, whether they are right or wrong, that they were simply tak-
ing a committee — they might just as well have taken a committee of the sen-
ate, or any other set of men, who .should have the power to examine applica-
tions and hear both sides and report the facts — that the jurisdiction of
Congress is retained in Congress just as it was before.
Every person who took part in the rebellion can come to Congress witli
736 APPENDIX.
his petition for Congress to act upon just as before; but as tliere is not a
man on either side of the Chamber who proposes to pay for this class of losses,
and there cannot be found probably u prominent person in the country
who so proposes, and as they amount to millions, we simply say to the Court
of Claims, "You need not trouble yourselves to investigate or report on this
class of cases." Does the senator v^^uppose that if you took that bill and struck
out the words "court of claims " and put in " the attorney-general of the United
States" or "the chief clerk of the treasury department," it would be uncon-
stitutional to let him make the report? That is the question I desire to put.
Mr. Brown. Oh, no; the senator knows very well that I do not hold it to
be unconstitutional, and I was not saying it was, and my argument did not
tend to any sucii conclusion. And 1 will remark that the senator does not
state the Drake amendment correctly.
Mr. Hoar. I thought the senator cited the decision of the court on the
Drake amendment to show that this was a similar case, and that they held
it to be unconstitutional.
Mr. Brown. 1 referred to the case decided by Chief Justice Chase, and
read from that. I have not denied the constitutionality of this reference to
a court; but let me ask the senator now, suppose a bill of this character were
to come up for action and we were to enact that all the States of the Union
should have the benefit of it, except the New England States, because they
got cross or disloyal during the war of 1812 and behaved badly and held the
Hartford convention, and therefore that no disloyal New Englander and no
person descended from any New England State should have anything to do with
the investigation or have any rights under it, would he vote for it ? If not,
does he think a Southern senator should vote for this act, which makes this
odious discrimination against the best class of the Southern people?
Mr. Hoar. If the Congress of the United States had been in the habit for
twenty or thirty years, when the anti-war Democrats were in power, of re-
jecting various claims from New England on the ground that she beliaved
badly in the war of 1812, I have no doubt it would have been perfectly con-
stitutional for the men who acted on that theory that those claims should not
be paid, in providing a tribunal to investigate claims to say that that class
of claims the tribunal need not trouble itself with, need not investigate, and
anybody who thought they ought not to have been paid, would have been
justified in putting that into the bill. Now we think, the senator and I both
think, this class of Southern claims ought not to be paid. Therefore we say
that the court ueed not trouble itself with them.
Mr. Brown. The New England States have never been backward, never
tardy, in presenting their claims. And they have received a large and liberal
sliare. They shared largely in the Geneva fund under act of last session.
They have always got the full measure of their rights. They would be ex-
ceedingly restless and resentful of a proposition to exclude them from equal
rights and equal privileges in any investigation of legal claims. As to tiie
class of claims embraced in my amendment, I do not agree with the senator,
and 1 do not believe he agrees with himself.
I am referring simply to the $10,OOI),000 in the Treasury that Chief Justice
Chase, in the opmion I have just read, said the Government holds as a trus-
tee for the owners. I am referring to tiiat class alone, no other claim or
class of claims. I do not believe the senator from Massachusetts will say
that ou<;ht not to be paid. Indeed, I believe he will, as an American senator,
feel it his imperative duty to vote for my amendment. He knows it is just.
He knows the money is in the Treasury, that the Government is trustee for
the true owners, and that they are entitled to it on every principle of equity
and good conscience.
APPENDIX. 737
Mr. Hoar. Admitting that to be so, does not the honorable senator agree
with me that there is no occasion to refer the cotton claims to tlie Court of
Claims? We know all about the facts. That is a question that Congress
can settle as well as anybody else. Then why should they be put into the
bill?
Mr. Brown. It is not a question that Congress alone can settle. Two
things should be done. One is the removal by Congress of the bar of the
statute of limitations that prevents the owners of this fund from suing for it
in the Court of Claim*, and the other is a provision to try each case and see
who is entitled to the property ; this must be done in court. I do not be-
lieve the senator from Massachusetts can, and I doubt whether there is any
senator here who can afford to vote against a measure that is so obviously
just. Certainly no senator can whose constituents have the benefit of the
distribution of the Geneva award voted them in large degree by Southern
senators. I do not believe any one of them can afford to vote that the true
owners of this fund, many of them widows and orphans, shall not be per-
mitted to pursue their riglits in the Court of Claims and have them adjudi-
cated there. I do not believe there is that much prejudice now existing.
Hostilities ceased some eighteen years ago, and almost a generation has
passed since that time ; and the people, whatever politicians may think
about it, have become tired of the distinctions of loyalty and disloyalty. We
are now all trying to be loyal. In each section we are vieing with each other
who can do most in loyalty for the general good of the whole people of the
United States. Why retain these distinctions or discriminations? Would the
senator fi'om Massachusetts, if the case were reversed, vote for a bill which
made any such provision or discrimination against New England? Clearly
not. Not a New England senator here would vote for it. If the discrimina-
tion were made against the people of any other section, the Western or Mid-
dle States, they would spurn the idea and would resist it to the last moment.
Why then should they ask us of tiie South, eighteen years after the war has
closed, to sit by and quietly vote for a provision, that even in an investiga-
tion of this character in the Court of Claims where the facts are to bebrou>;ht
before Congress, the rights of the Confederate shall not be considered, and
no evidence sliall be received in his behalf to sustain hi.s rights, until he first
swears and proves that he was always loyal to the Government during the
war ? We have passed that day. The Supreme Court has passed it over and
over again.
A word as to that statute of limitations. How happened it that these
suits were not brought within the time allowed? The act was passed in
1663, when the war was raging in its deadliest fury. Provision was made
for the seizure of this property, provision was made for the sale of it, and
the payment of the proceeds into the Treasury of the United States, and that
the money lie there until the true owners could produce proof of their owner-
ship. If they were loyal it was provided they might have time to do so ; if
they were disloyal there was no provision made for confiscation, but the
money lay there subject to the future disposition of the Government. At a
subsequent period the Government proclaimed, through its proper depart-
ment, auinesty and pardon to everybody, and opened the doors of the courts
and of the Court of Claims again to those who were the claimants and owners
of this fund.
You may ask why did not everybody avail himself of the benefit? For
this reason: Nobody knew, not even the Supreme Court of the United States
at the time, when the statute of limitations commenced to run, or when the
right of action was barred.
It was provided in the captured and abandoned property act, that it should
47
738 APPENDIX.
commence to run at the time of the suppression of the rebellion, and it should
run two years from tliat time. Wlieii was the rebellion suppressed? Tiiat
was a question which perplexed the heads of the wisest men of this country
for a loncj while. Was it suppressed when Lee and Johnston and Kirby
Smith and every Confederate commander laid down liis arms, and all the
people of the Southern States returned to their allegiance and submitted to
the laws of the United States? Was it suppressed when the post offices
were all opened, post-routes established, postmasters appointed? Was it
suppressed when the courts were opened and when everybody's rights could
be adjudicated in court, when everything was going on orderly and peace-
fully ? Was it then suppressed, or when was it suppressed? Tliat ques-
tion was never decided until about one year and a half after the time that
the statute of limitations is now held tu have run and to have become a com-
plete bar.
At the fall term in 18G9 the Supreme Court of the United States, the pres-
ent honored President of the senate, I believe, delivering the opinion, held
that the rebellion was finally suppressed when President Johnson on the
2Uth of August, 1866, issued his proclauiation declaring its suppression.
Then it had two years to run from that time, and on the 20th of August,
18G8, the bar of the statute was complete. AVho knew that fact? It waa
not known to any of the departments of the Government of the United
States ; it was not known to the Supreme Court of the United States until
the year following the time when the decision was made to which I
have just referred, I allude to the case of The United States vs. Anderson,
9 Wallace, which was adjudicated at the December term, 1869, a year and
some months after the bar of the statute had completely attached, when the
Supreme Court of the United States ruled fixing the time when the rebellion
was suppressed.
Why did not these claimants within the two years commence proceedings
in the courts to recover the money which was due them in the Treasury for
their cotton and other property sold? They did not do it because they knew
nothing of the time when the statute commenced to run or when the bar at-
tached. Not only that, we were then in the throes of reconstruction, we
were then almost in a condition of anarchy and great confusion ; we were a
portion of the time under military dictators, and we did not know one day
what our fate was to be the next.
Take my own State for instance. Up to the very time or even after the
time that the bar of the statute had completely run, a military dictator sat
in Atlanta and removed the governor of the State from his office and ap-
pointed a military man in his place. He also removed the treasurer of the
State from office ami he appointed another in his place. He removed judges
and appointed others in thf^ir place.'. This was done even after the period
when according to the ruling of the Supreme Court the time within which
suit could be brought had aljsolutely expired. Not only that, but subse-
quent to that period of time a military dictator sat in his seat at Atlanta and
ordered, like Cromwell of England, the Legislature of Georgia to disperse,
and sent an outsider not a member to take the chair and reorganize the Leg-
islature. That was the state of things in the South at the time this bar of
the statute of limitations attached against these Southern claims.
Another thing shoulil be remembered. There had been great confusion,
great trouble, destruction of property, destruction of railroads, and the means
of communication were nothing like what they now are. Large numbers of
persons who were interested in this property had been killed in battle or
died in service; their widows and orphans knew nothing about this statute.
They knew not that there was any probability that they would ever get any
APPENDIX. 739
compensation. They did not know that there was provision made for the
commencement of suits in the Court of Claims until long after the time had
expired. Their cotton and other property were taken from them by the
military after the surrender of Lee and Johnston, sent to New York, and
sold, and the money put into the Treasury of the United States. The chief
justice of the United States says the United States Treasury had no right
to it ; that the United States is a trustee for the owners. And yet in the
face of all these tacts shall it be said that the Congress of the United States
denies to these claimants the right to come into the courts and litigate their
rights and establish tiiem by the judgment of the courts of the Union?
Surely this is not the feeling of honorable senators or of honest men in or
out of this Chamber.
I see no room for any politics in this question. It is a simple question of
sheer justice. Will you permit these parties, widows and orphans — a large
portion of them — as I have said, to whom tips property belongs, which was
seized and taken from tht-m and the proceeds paid into your Treasury, to
come and establish that fact in your courts and draw their proportion, or
will the Government of the United States deny that right to her citizens who
are now, and in contemplation of law have always been, loyal ? 'J'his is all
I am asking for. 1 am not asking you to extend the law a particle further,
to embrace any other claim of any character, only the simple claims of those
whose property was seized and sold, and who can establish the fact that the
money nosv in the Treasury belongs to them under the rulings of the Su-
preme Court, because it aro^^e from the sale of their property. I simply ask
the senate to remove the bar of the statute, and let them be heard.
Is it unreasonable ? Will you deny to a large and needy class of your cit-
izens this simple measure of justice? But I may be met here by the objection,
and I was on that part of the argument when I was drawn off by the long
question of the senator from Massachusetts, that the owners of this cotton
and other property, or many of them, were disloyal to the Government, and
that they cannot now come into the Court of Claims and establish their right
UTiless they can show that they were always loyal. I say the Supreme Court
of the United States has ruled the exact reverse of that. It has held that a
party after he has been pardoned is placed exactly where he would have
stood if he had never been disloyal, and lias a right, having been pardoned,
to come into court and litigate his rights just as though he had never
engaged in the rebellion. The Padelford case I have already referred to.
There Mr, Padelford availed himself of President Lincoln's proclamation,
and after he had taken the oath, com]dying with the terms and conditions of
the proclamation, his property was seized. What says the Supreme Court on
this subject? I read fiom 9 Wallace, pa^^e 543:
" But it has been suggested that the property was captured in fact, if not
lawfully, and that the proceeds having been paid into the Treasury of the
United States, the petitioner is without remedy in the Couit of Claims un-
less proof is made that he gave no aid or comfort to the rebellion. The sug-
gestion is ingenious, but we do not think it sound. The sufficient answer to
it is that after the pardon no offence connected with the rebellion can be im-
puted to him. If in other respects the petitioner made the proof which
under the act entitled hiui to a decree for the proceeds of his property, the
law makes the proof of pardon a complete substitute for the proof that he
gave no aid or comfort to the rebellion. A different construction would, as
it seems to us, defeat the manifest intent of the proclamation and of the act
of Congress which authorized it. Under the proclamation and the act, the
Government is a trustee, holding the proceeds of the petitioner's property for
his benefit; and having been fully reimbursed for all expenses incurred in
740 APPENDIX.
that character, loses nothing by the judgment, ■which simply awards to the
petitioner what is his own."
That is Padelford's case, and it comes exactly to the point that the pardon
when established stands in lieu of the proof that the claimant was loyal dur-
ing the war.
1 desire on that same point also to refer to the case of Armstrong v's. The
United States, 13 Wallace, 154. The syllabus is :
"1. The President's prochunation of the 25th of December, 1868, grant-
ing'unconditionally and without reservation to all and every person who
directly or indirectly participated in the late insurrection or rebellion, a full
pardon and amnesty for the offence of treason against the United States, etc.,
with restoration of all rights, privileges and imnmnities under the Constitu-
tion and the laws which liave been made in pursuance thereof,' granted
pardon unconditionally and without reserve; and enables persons otherwise
entitled to recover from the United States the proceeds of captured and
abandoned property, under the abandoned and captured property act, to re-
cover it though no proof be made, as was required by that act, that the claim-
ant never gave any aid or comfort to the rebellion.
" 2. The proclamation referred to is a public act, of which all courts of
the United States are bound to take notice, and to which all courts are
bound to give effect."
The case of Pargoud vs. United States, 13 Wallace, page 156, is to the
same point :
"Appeal from the Court of Claims.
" Pargoud filed a claim in the court below to recover under the abandoned
and captured property act the proceeds of certain cotton. This act, as by
reference to its provisions on page 151, supra, will be seen, makes ' proof
that the claimant had never given aid or comfort to the late rebellion ' a pre-
requisite to recovery. Pargoud's petition, however, averred no loyalty at all.
On the contrary, it set fortli in the first sentence of it 'that he was guilty of
participating in the rebellion against the United States,' adding, liowever,
' that he had been duly and legally pardoned for such participation by the
President of the United States: and that he had received a-pardon under
the great seal, dated on the 11th day of January, 1866, which had been duly
accepted by him, aud that his acceptance, duly notified to the Secretary of
State, was now on file in the office of that Department ; and that he had
complied with ail the legal formalities in such case made and provided, and
imder the proclamations of amnesty and pardon issued by the President of
the United States, now stands and is entitled to be considered in law as if
lie never had, in point of fact, participated in the late rebellion against the
United States, and consequently he now avers that in legal intendment
and under the allegations already made he has at all times borne true allegi-
ance to the Government of the United States ; and that he has not in any
way aided, abetted, or given encouragement to the rebellion against the
United States.' "
The Chief Justice says :
'• We have recently decided, in the case of Armstrong vs. United States,
that the President's proclamation of December 25, 1868. granting pardon
and amnesty unconditionally and without reservation to all who itarticijiated
directly or indirectly in the late rebellion, relieves claimants of captured
and abandoned property from proof of adhesion to the United States dur-
ing the late civil war. It was unnecessary, therefore, to prove such adhe-
sion or personal pardon for taking part in the rebellion against the United
States."
APPENDIX. 741
And they reversed the judgment of the Court of Claims, which had required
proof of loyalty after pardon.
The case of Armstrong's Foundry, decided in 6 Wallace, 766, is to the
same purport, so far as the effect of the pardon is concerned. That case
arose under the confiscation act of 6th August, 1861. That act makes prop-
erty used in aid of rebellion with the consent of the owner, subject to seizure,
confiscation and condemnation. The property was seized under this act, and
the Supreme Court held that the President's pardon relieves such owner
from the forfeiture of the property seized, so far as the right accrues to the
United States.
Let me recapitulate some of the points involved.
There are about $10,000,000 in the Treasury of the United States which
arose out of the sale of captured and abandoned property, as it was called,
of Confederates who are now citizens of the Southern States. Part of it
belonged originally to loyal citizens of the South during the war. These
citizens were permitted by the act of March, 1863, to file their claims at any
time within two years after the suppression of the rebellion, and, on proof
of loyalty and of ownership, to recover the proceeds of the sale of the prop-
erty.
In December, 1863, the President of the United States proclaimed univer-
sal pardon and amnesty to all persons engaged in the rebellion. This re-
lieved such owners of this fund as had participated in the rebellion from all
legal guilt and placed them on precisely the same legal footing as those who
had not participated in the rebellion ; but the period of the statute of limita-
tions, as I have already shown, was two years from 20th August, 1866, to
20th August, 1868, so that the bar of the statute had completely attached
before the President's pardon restoring those who participated in the
rebellion to all their legal rights. They therefore never had an opportunity
to file their claims in the Court of Claims to the part of the fund belonging
to them. Many of those who were loyal knew nothing of their legal rights
or of the terms of the act of 1863, passed during the war, for the reasons I
have already given, until after the bar of the statute had completely at-
tached. The authorities, including the Supreme Court of the United States,
did not know when the statute conimenced to run or when the bar of the
statute became complete until many months after all right of action was
barred by the statute.
The Supreme Court have held repeatedly that the Government does not
own this fund, but holds it as a trustee for the true owners. They have also
held that the pardon of the claimant who participated in the rebellion placed
him on the same legal footing of loyalty as the man who did not participate
in the rebellion, and gives him the same right to recover. Instead of prov-
ing his loyalty, he proves his ptirdon, and ttiat the Supreme Court says shall
be received in place of the proof of his loyalty.
There can be no possible dispute about the facts. The fund is in the
Treasury. It is not pretended that it belongs to the Government of the
United States. It is admitted that the Government holds it as trustee for
the owners, and it is admitted that the owners, whether they participated in
the rebellion or not, would, under the d^^cisions of the Supreme Court, be en-
titled to recover the fund, if the bar of the statute of limitations were
removed. That bar attached, under the peculiar circumstances above men-
tioned, during a period closely verging on anarchy in the Southern States,
when there was great uncertainty and confusion among our people. In a
word, it was in the stormier periods of reconstruction. Under this state of
the case the owners of this fund knock at the door of Congress, and ask that
the bar of the statute be removed, and that they be permitted to commence
742 APPENDIX.
proceedings in one of tlie courts of the Union for the recovery of money ad-
mitted to be justly and legally their due.
Can Northern senators afl'ord to vote against a bill that does this simple
act of justice to a larire class of worthy, honest, and conscientious citizens of
part of the States of this Union? It seems to me it is impossible.
Now one word more on this point. I will neither be misunderstood nor
misrepresented on this question. My amendment asks for no reopening of
the issues of the war. It does not ask for any enactment that would make
the Government liable to Southern war claims, or that would make it neces-
sary to appropriate one dollar out of the public Treasury to meet any claim
of that character. Whatever may be the effect of the Constitution, the
statutes, the proclamations of the President, and the rulings of the Supreme
Court upon the legal status of such claims, I do not ask to disturb in the
least particular their present status. I ask for nothing but the passage of an
act that secures to the legal owners of the fund, now in the Treasury, not
claimed by the Government, which arose out of the sale of the property be-
longing to those legal owneis, the right to establish their claims in court, and
to be treated as other American citizens are treated when they have estab-
lished them by proof that cannot be controverted. By the fifth section of the
act of ^lay 18, 1872, all cotton seized after the 30th June, 1865, by agents of
the Government, unlawfully, and in violation of their instructions, of which
the proceeds were paid into the Treasury was to be paid for by the Govern-
ment without regard to the loyalty of the owner. But the claim must be
filed in the Treasury within six months after the passage of the act. And
the act does not apply to any claim then pending in the Court of Claims.
But this act only applies when the agent of the Government acted illegally,
and in violation of instructions.
The President pro tempore. The hour of 2 o'clock has arrived.
Mr. Brown. I have said substantially what I desire to say. There is a
brief in connection with the subject, prepared with some care, which, if there
is no objection, I will put in the Record in connection with my remarks, and
as the hour of 2 has arrived I yield the floor to the regular order.
Speech of Honorable Joseph E. Browx, of Georgia, in the Sf.nate
OF the United States, Tuesday, January 23, 18&3. IIk gives his
views ON THE TaHIFP AND THE InTERNAL-ReVEN UE SYSTEM ; ON BES-
SEMER Steel, Rice, &c.
The bill (H. R. 5538) to reduce internal revenue being under consideration, and the
pending question being on the amendment of Mr. Miller of New York, to increase from
50 cents to ^\ per ton the duty on iron ore —
Mr. Brown said:
Mr. President: I have said nothing on this very important question, and
I do not know that I should utter a word now were it not that when I
asked a question this morning when the senator from Texas [Mr. Maxey]
was making some remarks in reference to the importation of steel rails the
senator from Kentucky [Mr. Beck] thought pro])er, in a manner a little ex-
cited, to assign me a position on tliis question that I do not occupy. I do
not believe my friend intended to do injustice. I have usually found him,
in fact, I may say I have always found him fair, ju.st, and reasonable. He
made tlie statement that I would vote for 100 or 1.50 per cent, and for pro-
tection for protection's sake. Now, I say most distinctly that 1 occupy no
such position.
APPENDIX. 743
Mr. Beck. The senator will allow me. I think he will not find when the
reporter makes out the Record that I made such an assertion.
Mr. Brown. I so understood it. I do not know how it may appear in the
Record.
Mr. Beck. I never intended to make such an assertion, if I did.
^Mr. Brown. I did not think the senator did, but I so understood him,
and I think that was the language or very nearly the exact language he used.
And I wish now to say with emphasis that I occupy no such position on this
question. On a former occasion, at the last ses^-ion of Congress, when 1 ad-
dre^^sed the senate on this question, my honorable friend from Kentucky did
me the honor to hear me most of the time. In those remarks I was very
careful to negative any such idea.
T am utterly opposed to levying one dollar of tax on the people of the
United States'for protection alone. I am in favor as soon as it can possibly
be done of raising all the tax necessary to support the Federal Government
upon imported articles, as I have avowed again and -again upon this floor. I
am utterly opposed to the present internal-revenue system. It was a war
measure, adopted as such, never intended at tiie time to be fastened perma-
nently on the people of this country, and it never ought to be. That system
entails upon us, in addition to the exfiense we heretofore had to bear of col-
lecting the revenues, the cost of another army of collectors — inland collectors
— who are increased by a process of indefinite expansion when a political
campaign comes on; and many of them are used as very efficient political
agents to advance the interests of the party in power. That is not all.
Is'othing has done so much to annoy the citizens of this country, to vex and
harass them — I mean nothing in the shape of legislation for the collection of
revenue — as has the working of this internal-revenue system.
Under the law governing the system, or at least under the practice, and
they claim that it is justified by law, and I believe it is, by what purports to
be law on the statute-book, the collector of internal revenue sends his deputy
out upon a raid whenever he thinks proper to do so. He issues his summons
to his henchmen, and gathers around him whatever force he desires. lie
goes into the country in search of illicit stills, as the excuse is. What power
does he go armed with? If he finds a still running where there is not a li-
cense, he resorts to no judicial proceeding; he seizes it, destroys the still or
takes it from its place and carries it away, destroys the beer or any other ar-
ticles that he may find in the distillery that he thinks proper to destroy, and
seizes the property of the distiller and carries it off. and many times he takes
property in no way connected with the running of the distillery. This is
done by an agent of the Government of the United States, which Government
lias in its Constitution the distinct provision that private property shall not
be taken for public use without just compensation; and provides distinctly
that no one shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process
of law.
This system is even carried so far that if in these raids the revenue col-
lectors find a man at a distillery, though he had nothing to do with distilling,
if he becomes alarmed and runs at their approach, yet if they raise their fire-
arms and shoot him down, the courts of the State are not permitted to try
his murderers as criminals. In such case the demand comes for a transfer
of the case to the Federal courts, and it is so ordered, because this raider,
with his posse, who goes around through the mountains or the valleys hunt-
ing stills, is claimed to have been an agent of the Government, and acting
under its authority while he was out destroying the property of the citizen
without warrant or authority or the judgment of any court for doing so, and
if any one offers resistance, nay more, if any one flees even and does not stop
744 APPENDIX.
when commanded and is shot down, the State courts are held to have no ju-
risdiction, and this agent of the Government is put on trial in tiie United
States court and the United States district attorney is ordered to defend him.
A mockery of justice!
Tlius the Constitution and laws of this country, I mean the Constitution
and all laws passed in conformity to it, are trampled under foot reciilessly
and tyrannically in the execution of this system. And yet some of the sena-
tors in this Chamber, who are very denunciatory of almost any kind of tariff,
are sticklers for tlie continuance of the internal-revenue system. I would
abolish it absolutely. I would do away with this army of collectors and
these illegal raiders. I would destroy the power and monopoly of the great
whiskey ring, and I would collect the revenue at the ports of this country, as
our fathers collected it, and as it was always done except when the exigencies
of war required extreme measure-.
On what principle should we collect it? \Vhich is better, the tariff system
always practiced as most satisfactory to the people, or the internal-revenue
or direct-tax system ? It niu-^t be done by one system or the other. We
must have money to support the Government.
It is very easy to appeal to the prejudices of the populace on this ques-
tion. No matter what sort of tariff is proposed, what tlie per cent, is upon
any article; no matter what the duty is on clothing or food or trace-chains
or looking-glasses or anything else that has been mentioned and discussed
here, how easy it is to say were it not for the tariff our people wonld buy it
for 20 per cent., 30 per cent., 40 per cent., or 50 per cent, less than they now
pay. That is true, and it applies to every article that is protected
by a tariff; and every article produced by us upon which a tariff
is laid is protected to that extent. But how are you going to
get rid of it? What is your remedy for the protection of the people in
that case ? They can be protected against all these exactions of tariff and all
tariff' protection in one way, and that is to collect all the revenue this Gov-
ernment needs by internal taxation and collect none of it at the ports.
Then we .'should have the pure, genuine, unadulterated free-trade principle
carrifd out. Are senators ready to adopt that plan of collecting the reve-
nue? If they are, those who take that jiosition draw the line sharply and
distinctly between them and other senators who believe that the revenue
should be collected by a tariff. We must have a certain amount of revenue
each year to support this Government; how much I do not know. Our last
appropriation bills, with all the other demands of the Treasury, I believe
were stated on the last night of the last session to amount to about
$100,000,000.
Mr. Davis, of West Virginia. Four hundred and three million dollars.
Mr. Brown. Tiie honorable senator from West Virginia says $403,000,000
last year. J thank him. How much less is it to be this year? The senator
from Kentucky [Mr. Beck] is on the committee on appropriations.
Mr. Davis, of West Virginia. I will say to my friend from Georgia that
the secretary of the treasury estimates $415,000,000 for the next year.
Mr. Brown. The senator from West Virginia, a member of the committee
on appropriations, now says that the secretary of the treasury estimates
$415,000,000 fortius year, and $340,000,000 of that I understand "is for neces-
sary expenses. It may be that the .senator from Kentucky and his colleague
upon the committee on appropriations will find some way of cutting down
the appropriations immen.sely. If they do so, and it is practicable and just,
I will vote with them most cordially, for I desire to say here that the affairs
of this (ioverninent should be administered economically. All extravagance
should be cut off and not a dollar sliould be raised that is not necessary for
APPENDIX. 745
the economical administration of tlie Government. If, however, it takes
$il.5.000,000 a year to run it, or suppose we drop the $15,000,000 on account
of the economy that the committee on appropriations is going to exercise in
recommending appropriations, then it is §100,000,000 a year tliat we ha%e
to raise.
How is it proposed to do it? We must meet the question like sensible
men and like statesmen. We must support this Government, and we must
raise all the funds absolutely necessary for that purpose. Assuming; that it will
be not less than $iOO,000,OdO next year, how do you propose to raise it? By a
tax on customs, that is upon imported goods, or by an internal tax upon the
people of this country levied directly? How is it to be raised ? 1 repeat.
If by tariff, we need not be so very exact about just how much we put on each
article. We shall get some too high and some too low, perhaps, for it is very
hard to adjust it right, but we need not stickle about small per cents, in it,
because it will take a large tariff to raise that amount. Even with your
internal-revenue svstem. which is clung to with so much tenacity by some
senators, you will be obliged to raise about $250,000,000 by tariff taxation,
if I mav use that expression.
Mr. Beck. Before the senator proceeds further, will he allow me to sug-
gest one thing that has occurred to me several times?
Mr. Brown. I do not wish to give way for a speech.
INlr. Beck. I do not wish to m;ike a speech ; I desire only to suggest to
the senator from Georgia that all the revenue raised from whiskey and
tobacco goes into the Treasury of the United States, and therefore prevents
the necessity of raising anything more than the revenue actually paid, where-
as Mr. Oliver says |28 a ton on Bessemer steel, out of which millions have
heretofore been raised, is now proliibitory, and that tax so kept up will make
the people of the country pay $28 a ton more than the steel rail is worth, and
yet not pay a dollar into the Treasury and not enable us to decrease taxation
anywhere else.
Mr. Brown. At a later period in my speech I will come to that Bessemer-
steel question. I have heard my friend from Kentucky, I think, something
less than three hundred times on that question in the senate.
Mr. Beck. And you have been greatly annoyed, no doubt, every time.
Mr. Brown. I have always been ready to vote for a reduction oi the tar-
iif on steel rail. There is another side to that picture. It is true tlie diffi-
culty the senator mentions lias been one in the way, but I even prefer
that to the system which he advocates, the practical working of which is for
a raiding band of its agents to go out and shoot down citizens with impunity.
Mr. Beck. One word more, and I will not trouble the senator again. _ He
even prefers that Bessemer steel shall be taxed $28 a ton, absolutely prohibit-
ory and yielding no revenue, rather tlian to have a revenue raised by
means whereby all that is paid goes into the Treasury.
Mr. Brown. Xo, that is not what I said. The senator shall not misrep-
resent me in that way. I mean now, as between the two systems, that I
prefer the tariff system even with some evils connected with it, rather than
his system, or the one he advocates, under the practical workings of which the
property of the citizen is destroyed without warrant or authority, and the
citizen is shot down with impunity.
Mr. Beck. That same thing is done under the customs laws quite as bad.
Mr. Brown. I have not known instances of it. I do not tliink the sena-
tor can point to them. If he will go to the mountains of North Carolina,
Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee he can find plenty of instances such as I
have mentioned under the internal-revenue system. I have not heard of
them under the customs laws, and I do not believe they exist there. I have
746 APPENDIX.
heard of no case where a citizen was shot down there for running when he
was told to stand by an agent of the United States and tiieii the criminal
carried into a United States court for a mock trial and there acquitted, the
United States district attorney defending him. I know no such case. T ven-
ture to say the senator from Kentucky cannot furnish the instance. "Will he
name the case? It does not exist.
But now a word —
!Mr. Harris. The senator from Georgia certainly does not mean —
Mr. Brown. I cannot be interrupted by all the senators, because I want
to go on and make my argument. They will have ample time to reply to
me after I have done. I certainly do not intend to be discourteous to any
senator.
Mr. Harris. I simply desired to inquire of the senator if he meant to say
that there was anything in the internal-revenue law authorizing the acts to
which he refers ; if he does not refer to acts of crime in violatiou of that and
all other laws?
Mr. Brown. I meant to say that under the law and practice of that sys-
tem men are shot down under the circumstances I have mentioned and the
murderers tried under the circumstances mentioned, and acquitted. Not
long since there was an instance in the State represented by the senator from
Tennessee of that very character. Davis, T believe, was the man who did
the shooting. lie was a rather noted revenue agent. That is the practice
under that system. It occurred in Tennessee, it occurred in Georgia, it oc-
curred in Alabama, it occurred in North Carolina and South Carolina, and I
do not know but also in Kentucky. 1 do not know whether citizens have
been shot down by the revenue officers there or not.
But a word more in reference to the Tennessee case. Davi^, the revenue
collector, was a favorite with the authorities and a noted raider upon the
people. And I here make a short extract from the very able speech of Colo-
nel A. S. Colyar, who was counsel for the State in the prosecution of Davis
for killing Ilaynes. Davis was on a raid in Grundy county. lie approached
a di-stillery and Haynes was at the distillery, but in no way connected with
the business of distilling. Seeing the revenue officers and not knowing but
he might be arrested, he started to run. They hailed hiui, but lie did not
stop and Davis shot him down. Davis was indicted in Grundy county for
murder, and the case took the usual course. An order was sent down from
the United States court to the State court to transfer the case to the former
court. The transfer was made and the usual result. I believe, followed. Davis
was not punished. But to the extract. Colonel Colyar says :
" Here is an extract from a report made of the result of one raid in which
the defendant took part, as follows :
"' They seized sixteen distilleries, five of which were in Tennessee, nine in
Kentucky, and two in Virginia. They also captured l."),200 gallons of mash
and beer, IQH^ gallons of singlings, 87 of whiskey, 45 bushels of meal, 16
bushels of malt, 10 copper stills and caps, 11 worms, and 2Gi masli-tubs.
Value of property destroyed, $3,300.'
" A few days before the above was published, the same paper had reported
the liorses, cattle, and hogs brought into the city on a steamboat as the result
of a single raid by Davis and his'squad, this property being seized as projierty
belonging to illicit distillers."
This, tlien, is the manner in wliich the business of collecting internal reve-
nue is carried on in the State of Tennessee. And it is carried on in like man-
ner, as already stated, in a number of other States. The property of the citi-
zen is seized or destroyed at the caprice of the Government agent, lie sits
ia the case as judge, jury, and executioner. He determines whetlier the
APPENDIX. 747
party is guilty of illegal distillation. He destroys the still and seizes the
property of the party; and if the distiller or any one present attempts to
get away he shoots him down ; and when indicted in the State court he claims
a transfer to the United States court, where he goes through the form of a
mock trial, defended by the United States district attorney, and is acquitted.
And this is the system that is to be settled upon us and under which our
people are to suffer oppression until they have arisen in their might and
required of their representatives its unconditional abrogation.
What would be said in Great Britain of any such conduct as this? Ref-
erence is made by Colonel Colyar, in the able argument to which I have re-
ferred, to the celebrated Knox cases in England. When it was the custom
of the chief of cabinet to issue warrants for the seizure of property, without
describing the property, and in some instances for the seizure of persons,
without the names or description of such persons, suits were brought by
those thus illegally arrested and by those whose property was thus illegally
seized; and after along litigation, in which the Government defending the
suits expended nearly £100,000, the Court of King's Bench held that the
warrants were illegal, that the defendant in every such case was entitled to
recover damage of the agent of the Government. The English law and con-
stitution protect the person and property of the subjects of that Government
from illegal seizure.
Lord Chatham is reported to have said: "The poorest man may in his
cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the Crown. It may be frail; its
roof may shake; the wind may blow through it; the storm may enter, but
the King of England may not enter. All his forces dare not cross the threshold
of the ruined tenement."
This is the regard which the laws of England pay to the rights of person
and property, 'i'he Constitution of the United States says that no citizen
shall be deprived of "life, liberty, or properly" without due process of law;
and yet in the teeth of the English common law and of the Constitution of
the United States an internal revenue system is maintained which practically
sets aside all these safeguards and leaves life, liberty and property subject to
the whims and assaults of irresponsible revenue agents.
Now, a word on the Bessemer-steel question as it has been put to us so
often. I have never seen the day when I would not have voted to reduce the
tariff on steel rails. The Southern Railway and Steamship Association a
few years ago, at my instance, passed resolutions memorializing Congress for
a reduction of that tariff, because we thought it was unreasonable and unjust.
I say now it is, and I am ready to vote with the senator from Kentucky to
reduce it, and I have never seen the day when I would not have done it;
therefore I am not to be misrepresented on that question.
But let us look now a moment at the working of it. While I utterly repu-
diate the doctrine of a high tariff making low goods, as that clap-trap phrase
is usually pronounced in the country, still it is a fact which we cannot get
away from that where an article is protected unjustly, it may be as it was in
this case even to the point of prohibition, it builds up the industries of this
country until they reach the point where competition between themselves
puts down the price immensely below what it was when those interests were
first protected by a high tariff.
Take this very article of Bessemer steel. I have some knowledge of the
working of tiiat business. It was my duty some years since to make a pur-
chase of that article for a railroad interest which I represent. For the first
1 ever purchased I paid $130 per ton in cash. A few days since my agent
purchased in Pennsylvania 2,OoO tons of as good steel as that was for $38.50
per ton. The first was $130 per ton ; the last purchased was $38.50 per ton.
748 APPENDIX.
The tariff was the same in both cases. It was $28 per ton when I purchased
the first, and it is 828 per ton now.
What reduced it? Why is it not $130 a ton now; or if not that much,
why is it lower than it was? IIow did it get down to $38..50? It was in
this way: A tariff was put on that was almost prohibitory; the article was
in demand ; lartre amounts of capital were invested; able capitalists here
purchased the patent-right for this country, and then put millions of money
into mills to manufacture it; and they have built up a competition among
themselves ; and that has reduced it from $130 to $38.50, while there has
been no chantre in the rate of the tariff.
Therefore there is a great deal of fallacy in all these statements about the
exorbitant tariff on Bessemer steel ruining this country. The railroads had
to pay (and the people have to pay for it, of course, in the end) unreasonable
rates for the article at the start. Why was it that we had to pay at that
day $130 a ton? If we had not put up mills to make it in this country, it is
doubtful whether we should not be paying $130 a ton or some other very
high rate to day for it, for the foreign manufacturer having the mt)nopoly
would have put his own price upon it, and therefore we should probably
have to pay double or three times to-day what we do pay to our own mills.
By this system those mills are now located here ; the capital is in them ; the
plant is there; and they cannot be removed ; and we have this competition
for all time to come. I am willing to vote to reduce the tariff on steel to a
reasonable rate, as I have always been, and give the benefit of it to the
people.
Take another illus-tration —
Mr. Beck. The senator is aware, I suppose, that he can buy Bessemer-
steel rails for $24 or $2.3 a ton, free on board, iii Liverpool.
Mr. Brown. But I suppose Bessemer steel, as well as everything else,
ought to pay some of the $250,000,000 we need to carry on the Government.
I think it ought not to pay as high a rate as it now pays. But if we adopt
the system of collecting all the revenue by internal taxation, then the senator
from Kentucky is right, and we can get it at $25 in Liverpool. And then
■we will have to pay a direct tax about seven times as much as our present
State tax on our lands, our horses, mules, cattle, hogs, and sheep. The
people prefer that the railroads pay it on Bessemer steel rather than have
direct tax.
The very fact that we have had this competition here has compelled them
to come down with the price abroad, and if we had not the competitiim here
we could not get it at any such price. If we had built no Bessemer mills in
this country we should have had no steel delivered here at $24 a ton. The
difference is now between $24, if the senator's figures are right, and I sup-
pose they are, and $38.50. Well, I would take off part of the duty on that
article, and I would still make the railroads that use Bessemer steel pay part
of the tariff, pay part of the $250,000,000 that somebody has to pay.
But when the senator asked me the last question or made the last state-
ment, I was going to refer to another article in which my own State is in-
terested. Prior to the war, Georgia and the Carolinas had almost a monopoly
of the rice market. Rice at tliat day did not sell for more than $2 por hun-
dred pounds. There was 20 per cent, ad valorem duty upon it. We had
slave labor, and we made it almost as clieaply as the Cliinaman and the
people in the East do, and we had a monopoly of the market. Not a pound
came in at 20 per cent. Foreign rice at that time could not compete.
But war clouds overshadowed the country, and the contending armies met,
and the blockade closed our ports, and Southern rice was not permitted to
go to Northern markets. What did rice go up to in the United States?
APPENDIX. 749
While there was plenty of it in the East, in China and other countries, with
the ports thrown open to it at $2 a hundred, it could not come because the
rice raised by slave labor was lower than that. But as soon as the Southern
rice was cut off, and no longer went into the market of the United States,
that part of it occupied by the Union government and armies, it rose to from
$12 to 114 per hundred. Why did not the foreigners bring it in and kindly
pell it to us at $4 a hundred? Because war had crushed the production in
this country, and they at once took advantage of our necessity to run the
price up three or four times as high as it had been before.
Since the war, nothing could have been done re-establishing the old rice
plantations had it not been for the tariff, because now under the present
system of culture the foreij^n rice-maker gets labor at a cost of less than half
what we can get it for. Drop protection and that industry drops, and one
hundred and fifty to one hundred sixty thousand people supported by the
rice culture are thrown out of employment, and valuable plantations are
thrown back into the forest. What has been the result? It was said that
the tariff ou rice was too high. The result has not been at the present price
to prevent it from coming in. But nearly iialf of all the rice the people of
the United States now use is imported, and it came down in 1880 and 1881
to 81 25 a hundred.
When you put a tariff on home rice and protected it so that the business
could go forward, the foreigner dropped the price of his rice from $14 a hun-
dred, which he could no longer get, and he now makes it and brings it here
and sells it to us at $4.5U in competition with the home rice.
Therefore it is idle to say, if we want to talk like candid men on these
questions, that a tariff protecting largely any industry does not cause capital
to be invested in that industry and build it up so that it can after a while
do with less protection. That is the working of it in every instance almost
where you trace the course of it all along through our tariff history. Bes-
semer steel is one insiaTice, and rice is another notable instance.
When our home factories did not make the Bessemer steel to anything
like the supply, the foreign manufacturers brought it here and sold it at a
price laid down in the interior of Georgia at $13i) a ton. We protected un-
reasonably, as it seemed at the time, the home manufacturer of this article,
and the result has been that now the price is down by cotnpetition among
ourselves to $o8.50 a ton.
Mr. President, I hold in my hand the statistics of the imported merchan-
dise for the ye;ir ending June 30, 1882, and 1 see that the whole amount of
goods imported for consumption was $716,000,000 worth. Of that amount
$210,000,000 came in on the free list, — I give only the round numbers;
$.j05,000,()00 on the dutiable list paid taxes; $505,000,000 is the whole
amount of dutiable goods imported at the ports of the United States for the
fiscal year ending June 30, 1882. With a duty of 40 per cent, ad valorem
that would produce only $202,000,000 revenue. That will not do. You are
obliged therefore — and there is no es -ape from the statistics — if next year
is as this year, to put an average tax of more than 40 per cent, ad valorem
on every dollar's worth of goods imported on the dutiable list to raise
$202,000,000. You must have at least $250,000,000 from customs, and your
internal revenue in the bargain.
You must raise, say, $2.5U,0(iO,000 by customs, and then you must have on
all dutiable goods imported during the year, if there be the same quantity
this year, a tax of about 50 per cent, ad valorem. That is terrible upon
trace-chains and looking-glasses and shovels and picks and hoes and clothes
and hats and shoes and boots and other articles. The people could abso-
lutely get them for 5U per cent, less than they do if there was no tax. If we
750 APPENDIX.
did not have to support this Government we should be relieved of an im-
mense amount of taxation. One senator spoke of the very high taxation ;
tlsat it is 50 per cent, or 40 per cent., and no doubt preferred 20 per cent, ad
valorem. Some people forget that we have to support the Government, and
put about 50 per cent, upon every dollar's worth that is imported, that is
dutiable, to raise the amount necessary, ■which we are obliged to have.
How are you going to raise it? Lower all these duties to 20 per cent, and
see wlietlier you can do it. I know that the advocates of extreme free trade
will not raise all tlie revenue by internal taxation, but they say if you lower
the duties the eti'ect will be to increase the quantity imported. Well, I sup-
pose we shall not import much more or much less than we need. I presvune
that all the goods needed this year came in ; all we were in a condition to
pay for came in.
It is true that by lowering the tariff to a point where you cannot get the
nece.ssaiy revenue out of it. you can destroy home industry. If you reduce
the tariff enough to greatly stimulate the importation so as to destroy our
home industries, I do not know that you will get enough from it to make
$2.50,000,000 a year, or to make, as I think it ought to be, with the internal-
revenue system aboli.-hed, the entire amount of §400,000,000 that is needed
to support I his Government.
I sympathize very cordially with the senators on this floor or gentlemen
anywhere else who desire to see to it that full, equal, and exact ju.stice is
done to the people and that no unnecessary burdens are saddled upon (hem.
But if I were to tell the country that all the taxes upon the goods bought by
the poor man and the rich man and everybody who consumes are an unnec-
essary burden, I should feel as if I was demagoging a little, for I s-hould be
keejung back from them another important statement that must in honesty
and fair play accompany that, that if you did not pay it in that way you
would have to pay it upon your property, and it would be as long as it is
broad usually and as broad as it is long in the end There would be a differ-
ence in the class who ymy it, and that difference under the system of collect-
ing it internally would be against the farmer, in favor of the gambler, in fa-
vor of the rich who pay most of the tariff. The present system saddles more
ot it on the rich man and the gambler.
Take an illustration, i know a farmer in Georgia who is worth $20,000
clear of indebtedness. He is a man of sense; he economizes closely ; he has
good land and a good deal of it ; he has horses and mules and cows and sheep
and hogs and all property which a man in thatcondition usually draws around
him. lie and his family dress very plainly; he makes almost everything
upon the plantation that he needs; bii\s a little iron, a little salt, a little
sugar and coffee — what we call strictly the necessaries of lil'e; and he pays a
very small proportion of the taxes to sup|tort this Government compared with
the amount of property he owns. I know a gambler in Atlanta who is not
worth $5C0 of any visible property but is one of the finest dressed men in
town every time you see him. He wears gold rings upon his fingers and dia-
monds upon his breast, fine bouts, liats — and everything he wears is tine,
'ihat man under the tariff pays a great deal more of the taxes that now sup-
port this Government thau the old farmer 1 have spoken of who is worth
^20,000 in property. If you chiinge it and collect it by the internal-rev^^nue
system or direct taxation you lift the burden off the shoulder of the <;ambler
and put it upon the shoulder of the old planter. That will be the working
of it. There is no getting away from facts, and those are the facts in just
such instances as I mention.
I would vote here, as a rule, to exempt from the tariff almost everything
raised abroad that we do not gr'oJtice or manufacture in this country. Take
APPENDIX. 751
as an illustration tea and coffee. Neither is raised in this country, and we
compete with nobody on these articles, and a tariff upon them protects no-
body. I would keep them perpetually on the free-list. I would tax sugar,
although it is used as generally as tea and coffee, because it is produced in
this country, and I would give the laborers who produce sugar a part of the
benefit of the protection that the $250,000,000 or f300,U00,0u0 which we have
to raise is obliged to give somebody.
The great problem to my mind is how to properly adjust this burden and
how properly to divide this protection. I would make some exceptions to
the rule I have just laid down. There are certain articles ot luxury, u>ed by
the rich alone, made abroad that we do not compete Milh that I would make
pay a high tariff and bear that mucii of the burdens of the Government;
but unless there was something of that character while you relieve the com-
mon people and the poor people entirely, I would in every instance put the
tariff' on that which would protect some American industry or American re-
source. In other words, 1 would give the prefereuce to the labor of my own
country rather than the labor of a foreign country. I would relieve as far
as possible all the laboring masses of this country by placing the tariff on the
goods they produce by their labor in preference to that which is not produced
by American labor. And in taking that position 1 do not depart from the
traditions of the fathers; 1 stand squarely on the old Democratic platform
prior to the war, and I will not be driven from it no matter how many new
lights there may be who have concluded that they may do better than that
by protecting foreign labor against hume labor.
The position of the Democratic party then was a tariff for revenue with
incidental protection to American labor, raising no more money than was ab-
solutely necessary to an economical administration of this Governtnent.
There is precisely wliere I stood then. The first vote I ever cast for a Pres-
idential candidate was for Mr. Polk on that very platform. There 1 have
stood ever since, and there I intend to stand with my feet firmly fixed upon
that platform. We triumphed on that platform before the war, and I tell
my Democratic triends here that when we again triumph it will have to be
upon that platform. It is the old Democratic platform, and 1 invite my
Democratic friends who have wandered from it to return to it again. You
cannot succeed in a Presidential campaign if the people of this country are
satisfied that you are antagonistic in your feelings and your action to Ameri-
can production and American labor, and that you are willing to put foreign
productions and foreign labor in a condition of preference to home produc-
tions and home labor. There are too many laborers interested in this ques-
tion for any party to succeed upon such a platform.
1 have noticed the capital maile by our llepublican friends on the other
side of this Chamber out of this question ; and while they go as I think to the
extreme, and I do not agree with them, especially with that portion of them
who say that they are for protection tor protection's sake, yet I saw enough
in the last I'residential campaign, when we went before the people of these
United States upon the platform of a tariff for revenue only, saying nothing
about incidental protection, throwing aside the whole doctrine of the fathers
of the Democracy of former days — I say I saw enough of the effect then
in Connecticut and New Jersey and Indiana and probably in other States
to convince me that you will never carry them again on any such platform,
and you will never succeed without them or part of them.
We may say what we will about it, we may appeal to the prejudices of the
people as much as we will and say, You are paying 2m, 30, 40, 50, 60, or 70
per cent, upon goods, and you would get them a great deal clieaper if we
had no tariff, but you cannot mislead the people of this country on this
752 APPENDIX.
question. They underst< od it, the capital of the country understands it, the
manufacturers understand it ilie bankers and capitalists of every class un-
derstand it, the laborers understand it. Tliey know tiiere has to be a fund
raised by taxation to support tiiis GoA'ernnient, and tiiey are intelligent
enough to understand tliat it lias to lie done either by tariff on imports or by
internal taxation, where it cumes right home to everybody.
Under tlie tariff system it is an indirect tax, the larger portion of it paid
by the wealthier class, and those who consume most of the fine goods. And
being indirect, no one seems to feel it as they would a direct levy of the
amount upon that property at home. Unless the appropriations can be
greatly reduced, we are obliged to raise about f400,00",(HJU tiiis year; $2.)0,-
UU(),OUO of that by tariff as heretofore, and the rest by the internal-ievenue
system unless we repeal it. If we repudiate this principle, and levy the
whole liy a direct tax, then we have to raise -fiOO.OUO.OUO by internal taxation
alone. As matters now stand Georgia's share of this would be about $10,-
000.000 annually, which the tax-gatherers would collect from our people.
benatiirs here have talked about taxes upon the plow, and the hoe, and the
trace-chain, and other articles purclia-ed by the farmer. If we adopt the in-
ternal-revenue system for raising the whole amount which each State will
have to pay, each citizen will have to pay seven or eight times as much tax
in gold each year to support the Federal Government as he now pays to sup-
port the State Government. Then a heavy tax would be assessed upon the
land, the horses, the mules, the cows, the hogs, the sheep and the goats, and
tlie plows and the hoes, and the spades and the trace-chains, and the picks
and the shovels, and even the skillets of our peoj>le. The senator or repre-
sentative who by his vote adopts this principle, if it should ever become a
law, will meet amonir his constituents a storm of indignation such as he has
never before witnes>ed.
Instead of raising this immense amount by direct taxation upon all the
property of the people, let it be raised as our fathers raised it, by a tariff.
And ill laying the tariff let it be so adjusted as to raise the necessary revenue
upon imports, and at the same time afford incidental protection to American
industry. You cannot raise $250,000,000 on imported articles consumed in
the United States without giving §2.50,000 000 of proteciion to somebody. I
would so distribute the protection as to give part of it to manufactured arti-
cles of cotton rtnd wool and silk, of iron and steel and the ores that support
them, and part among otiier manufactures. And I would distribute part of
it among the wool-growers, the hemp-growers, the flax-growers, the tobacco-
growers, the fruit-growers, the sugar-growers, the rice-growers, the shep-
herds, and the herdsmen. In a word. I would so distribute it as to protect
as far as possilde against foreign productions and foreign labor all the pro-
d ictions and all the labor of all the producing and laboring classc.* of the
United Stiites. I would put upon the free-list generally, as already stated,
such foreign productions as we do not raise and such foreign manufactuies
as we cannot comi)ete with, and raise the amount of money we need upon
such articles as we do raise and such manufactures as we make.
We have to rai^^e the amount of money necessary to support the Govern-
ment, and what we raise upon one class of articles we do not have to put up-
on another. Tlierefore I prefer the first plan, that is to raise the revenue
by tariti'. And I will go further and say that I entertain no doubt that
nine-tenths of the voters of this country prefer tliat plan, and no party can
succeed at a general election that does noli support the first plan.
Mr. President, I want to discuss this question fairly. I shall resort to no
anecdote, nothing to amu.se you. If my premises are unsound or my argu-
ment is unsound, of course the senate will see it at once and it will be met
APPENDIX. 753
with a successful reply. If my position is impregnable there will be no reply .
But I desire to discuss the question on principle. We have to meet it on
principle at the bar of public opiuion, and we had better take a proper posi-
tion upon it.
Now, as to the details of this bill there are many of them that I do not like.
Some I will vote for ; some I will not vote for. I do not know yet whether
I shall vote for the bill or whether I shall vote against it. I have no idea
it will be anything like a perfect bill. We have seen enough to know that
we have stricken down the tariff on certain articles very low. For instance,
on the motion of my friend the senator from Texas [Mr. Coke], the other
day, when he proposed to reduce glue, I believe it was, to 10 per cent, ad
valorem. I voted for it because his State produces more horns and hoofs out
of which it is made than any other State in the Union, and if he and his
colleague were satisfied with that I would vote for it, though now glue is
40 per cent, below the average ad valorem that it takes to support this Gov-
ernment.
While glue is at 10 per cent, ad valorem other articles must pay 40, 50, 80,
or 100 per cent. It is an exceedingly delicate affair to take up this bill, or
any other bill, and so adjust all the details as to give just such a tariff as
ought to be given in the case of each particular article. No committee can
do it, and I presume no legislative assembly can do it. Something will be
wrong. There will be some inequality. Therefore, the very best we can do
is an approximation to what is right. We may make some mistakes in these
details in voting on particular articles. I may have voted for too high a tariff
on certain articles and for too low on others in the opinion of other senators.
Doubtless I have. All of it does not suit me ; but I intend to do the best I
can, voting on each question as it comes up after it has been discussed, to
perfect the bill as nearly as possible.
When it is done we shall have much to find fault with; but it is one step
in the right direction. The present tariff is unequal, unjust, and in some
respects iniquitous ; it wants modification and change ; the revenues of the
Government are such that they will bear reduction, and reduction ought to
be made; and if it will not meet the expenses, then we must reduce the ex-
penditures until it will meet them. But still the question comes back on
the details, how low are you going to arrange it? If you put 50 percent,
ad valorem on everything, which is about the amount it would take on all
the goods imported for consumption which were dutiable last year, you do
not do justice.
Some of the New England spinners, who have had protection for forty or
fifty years, do not need 50 per cent. now. They have been rocked in this
cradle long enough. They are no longer little children. They have gone
through the period of youth ; they are approximating the period of vigorous
manhood ; they have machinery now, many of them, that is equal probably
to the best anywhere ; they have skilled labor that is almost as good as you
can find in Europe, and probably much of it is as good ; it costs a little
higher, and that is the greatest difficulty. But some of them neither ask nor
expect 50 per cent., nor are they entitled to it.
On the other hand, take a struggling interest in the South — any of those
we are trying to build up ; if you put 50 per cent, on that and 50 per cent,
on New England, the one in its infancy and the other in its manhood, you
do not do justice between them. We have reached the point now where
the South sees some prospect. New England has had protection for half a
century. She has risen to that point where she will soon be able to take
care of herself. I would take off part of that tariff and I would put it
on where it is more needed.
48
754 APPEis'DIX.
These are my views generally on this question. There are many details
that I should like to go into that neither the time of the senate nor my
strength will permit me to do. This is the general outline of my position on
the tariff. Acting on the principles I have laid down, I shall vote in the case
of each particular item here as I think most just under all the circumstances:
so distribute the protection as to build up the weak that need fostering, and
withdraw protection as much as may be from the strong that do not need it.
Taking this view, I desire to say but little on the iron question. It is a
question in which I have some interest myself, and therefore it is not proper
that I should say much, but, as one of the senators from Georgia, it is my
duty to speak for her.
Therefore, unpleasant or perhaps improper as it may be for me to discuss
that question, as I am interested in it, I desire to say that Geoi'gia and Ala-
bama and Tennessee and South Caroliua and North Carolina and Virginia
are immensely interested in that question. Some of the greatest deposits of
iron on the face of the earth are found in those States. All we need is devel-
opment, and some of the fruits that protection has given in the case of Besse-
mer steel in reducing prices down two-thirds will be felt probably in a similar
degree there. I do not mean that there will be two-thirds reduction upon
present prices, however, because that would be clear below the point of pro-
duction.
But what I do mean is that we can build up by a judicious system an immense
interest there with immense power for the future and immense wealth to
that section. What made England wealthy and powerful as she is to-day ?
Many causes, you may say, but what was probably the leading one? What
probably did more to develop her power and her immense strength than
any other thing? Her iron interest and her coal intere.st fully developed ;
immense amounts of capital have been put into it ; the development has
been carried to the highest point, and it has given her a power and a prestige
that is beyond comparison ; and while she was formerly one of the strongest
protection powers in the world — she even required her dead to be buried in
woolens, to protect the woolen interest — she has built up her great interests
by protection till, like the Bessemer steel men, now she can go before the
world, throw her ports open, and undersell everybody. The South cannot
for a long time reach the position England has reached, but we have a great
deal more coal, a great deal more iron, in the three States of Tennessee,
Georgia, and Alabama than there is all told in the islands of Great Britain.
I recollect three or four years ago when IMr. Bell, president of the Iron
and Steel Association of (Jlreat Britain, visited that section and inspected
our iron and coal resources. While riding with him on the railroad train 1
said to him, " Mr. Bell, I have never had the pleasure to visit your country ;
I know the great power that you derive from the great coal and iron interests
and deposits of Great Britain ; how do yours compare in quantity with what
you have seen in Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee? " His reply, in a quick
nervous manner, was, " Ours is a speck, sir, a mere speck compared with
yours." We have six times, probably ten times as much mineral wealth in
the section that I now refer to as Great Britain had before a pick was ever
used on her deposit. ^
I do not think it is wise to adopt a policy in our tariff laws or any other
legislation that crushes out that interest and invites the products of this im-
mense English capital and English labor to come in here and occupy this field
with their productions and take charge of it. If you will put a rate of tariff on
iron low enough to stop the furnaces of the United States, how long do you
suppose it will be before iron brought from England to this country, like rice
brought from Asia here in 1862, will go up one, two, or three fold? It is the
APPENDIX. 755
fact that you produce it here in immense quantities and stimulate direct com-
petition among yourselves and meet them with competition that keeps down
the price to the consumer. Blot out the furnaces and rolling-mills of this
icountry, and then look out for your trace-chains and all your other iron arti-
cles that have been mentioned, and you will soon feel the weight of English
power upon your prosperity. You had better not do it, in my opinion.
Now, a word in reference to the pending question, and I have done. This is a
proposition to put a tariff on iron ore, as I understand it. The present rate on
iron ore is 20 per cent, ad valorem, which amounts to 56 cents and a fraction
per ton. This bill proposes to lower that rate, as it is reported by the commit-
tee, 6 and a fraction cents per ton. I think it would be unwise to do it.
As I see by a statement made by the chairman of the national executive com-
mittee of the iron-ore producers, there are in three or four mines on Lake
Superior 16,000 persons engaged in this busiaess, supporting about 50,000
people. I speak of that particular locality; 1 have not the statistics at hand
about any other. They have invested in the Marquette district, as the sta-
tistics here state, $33,000,000, and in the Menomonee district $18,000,000 ;
making $51,000,000 invested there in mining alone. Then they have built,
as is stated, three railroads there simply for the purpose of hauling this ore
to the iron furnaces at different places, mostly toward Pennsylvania and in
the West. Those railroads, that are used for scarcely anything else except
the transportation of iron ore, have cost, one $19,000,000 in round numbers,
making a total investment for working the ore in those two districts alone
$51,000,000. There are other portions of the country where there are very
large operations of this character going on. I suppose I might say on a sort
of guess, for I have not the data before me, that there are $200,000,000 now
invested in the United States in the iron-ore business, and it maintains over
100,000 people. I do not want to strike down that interest. While it may
be true that it is not in the interior, but on the lakes, 1 want to take in the
whole country in a broad view of this subject. Therefore I vote for the
amount that was fixed by the pig-iron convention at
Mr. Sherman. I happen to know, as the senator is looking for the recom-
mendation of the convention of all the iron manufacturers, that they agreed
after a full conference, all the parties interested
Mr. Brown. On 85 cents a ton.
Mr. Sherman. They agreed finally on 85 cents unanimously.
Mr. Brown. I was looking for the place where that convention was held.
Mr. Sherman. Eighty-five cents a ton for the ore.
Mr. Brown. There were but two concerns in the United States that ob-
jected to that, as it is stated here, and one of them
Mr. Sherman. It was the Bessemer Steel Works that objected to it, and
some other company. They will be found in the testimony taken before the
tariff commission, if it is desired.
Mr. Brown. It was two of the Pennsylvania steel works, as I remember —
I do not recollect the names and I cannot turn to them at this minute — but of
all the pig-iron manufacturers of the United States in convention, after fully
discussing this question, there were none who objected to 85 cents; there were
but the two concerns of any character, and those were two large steel mills,
that objected to it. It seems to me that the manufacturers of pig-iron ought
to be pretty fair judges, when they meet in convention and when they have
to buy the ore, of what the laborer ought to have for the ore delivei-ed at the
furnaces. And as they have all settled upon 85 cents per ton tariff and no
manufacturer of pig-iron objects to it, I am willing to vote to give to these
laborers the 85 cents per ton, which is a rise on the present rate of from 56
and a fraction to 85 cents. It seems to me that it is reasonable and little
756 APPENDIX.
enough, and therefore I shall vote, when we reach that proposition, for the
amount of tariff that was agreed upon by that convention as proper for the
protection of those engaged in furnishing iron ore.
Argument of Ex-Gov. Joseph E. Brown, in 1866, on the Uncon-
stitutionality OF THE Test Oath as applied to Attorneys-
at-Law in the United States District Court at Savannah, on
the motion of Hon. William Law, who applied to be permitted
to resume his practice in the Court without taking the Oath.
Hon. John Erskine presiding in said Court.
This argument was one of the first made in the Soutli upon the unconstitutionality
of the test oath. As will be seen by its perusal, it takes almost the identical positions
assumed by the Supreme Court of the United States at a later period when they
adjudged the test oath uucoustitutional. In the case of Judge Law, Judge Erskine in
an able opinion held the act to be unconstitutional, and admitted Judge Law and the
other attorneys to practice in his court. The decision afterwards made by the
Supreme Court was almost identical with that made by Judge Erskine at that early
period.
In the United States District Court, Judge Erskine, according to appointment, heard
the arguments of Judge Law and Ex-Gov. Joseph E. Brown upon the uuconstitution-
ality of the Test Oath as applicable to lawyers, the question having arisen from the
motion of the Hon. William Law, to be permitted to contiuue his practice in the
court in which he had practiced for forty-nine years, without taking the oath.
Gov. Brown said :
May it please Your Honor:
I am well aware of the gi-eat importance of the question now under con-
sideration. He who denies the validity of a solemn act of Congress on
account of its unconstitutionality, should do so with deference and respect
for the department of the government by which it is enacted, as well as for
the judicial tribunal which is asked to declare it null and void. I trust I
approach this question in a proper spirit, and with proper motives. In what
I have to say I state in advance that it is not my intention to reflect in the
slightest degree upon the conduct or to question the motives of any officer of
the government. After the scenes of anarchy and confusion through which
we have passed, I feel much gratified to see military rule once more give place
to civil, and to see the courts once more thrown open for tlie redress of griev-
ances and the general administration of justice. I trust tliey may never
again be compelled to give place to military tribunals or military rule. Of
the peace and quiet which is being restored to the country, I would say as
the great English commentator says of his government, Esto perpetua ! In
the discussion of this question I am satisfied that reason and authority are
more in demand than declamation or even eloquence. If I possessed the lat-
ter, which I do not claim, this is not the proper occasion for its display. As
I have copied most of the authorities which I cite literally, and as they are
numerous and I have not access at present to some of the books from which
they are taken, I shall read them, with the exception of some three or four,
from the manuscript copy which I have before me.
It is solemnly declared in the great charter of English liberty that : " No
freeman shall be taken, imprisoned, or disseized of his freehold or liberties,
or free customs, or be outlawed or exiled, or otherwise destroyed or con-
demned, but by lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land."
Judge Blackstone says of this provision in the great charter, that it pro-
tected every individual of the nation in the free enjoyment of his life, his
liberty, and his property, unless declared to he forfeited by the judgment of his-
APPENDIX. 757
peers, or the law of the land. [Com vol. 4. page 424.] Again, in vol. 1, page
139, he says : " And by a variety of ancient statutes it is enacted that no
man's lands or goods shall be seized into the king's hands against the great
charter and the law of the land ; and that no man shall be disinherited, nor
put out of franchises or freehold, unless he be du/y brought to anstcei; and be
forejudged by course of law; and if anything be done to the contrary it shall
be redressed and holden for none."
Mr. Vattel, in his standard work upon the law of nations, page 33, while
treating of the principal objects of good governm-m, says: "The society is
established with a view of procuring to those who are its members, the neces-
saries, conveniences, and even pleasures of life, and in general everything
necessary to their happiness — of enabling each individual peaceably to enjoy
his o-wn property, and to obtain justice with safety and certainty."
Again, he says : " The State ought to encourage labor, to animate industry,
to excite abilities, to propose honors, rewards, privileges, and so to order mat-
ters that every one may live by his industry."
It is laid down in the Declaration of American Independence, as a self-evi-
dent truth, that all men are endowed bj^ their Creator with certain inalien-
able rights ; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness;
that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving
their just powers from the consent of the governed.
By the above quotations and others that might be added, which are doubt-
less familiar to your Honor, it will be seen that the celebrated charter of
English liberty, the language of the great European author, and the Ameri-
can Declaration of Independence, all concur in laying down as fundamental
principles, which underlie the structure of good government in every free
state, which no legislative body has a right to ignore, disregard or violate ;
that it is the duty of the government not only to encourage labor and stimu-
late industry, but to so ocder matters that every man may live by his indus-
try. The pursuit of happiness in every innocent manner agret-able to his
inclinations ; the exercise of honest industry in any trade or profession
which he may select for the purpose of procuring a livelihood ; the acquisi-
tion of property by his labor, and the protection by government of his life,
liberty, person and property against every illegal or unjust violation or inva-
sion, are inherent inalienable rights of the citizen or subject, which no gov-
ernment can disregard or violate without incurring the just censure of
enlightened reason for the exercise of tyranny and oppression. But if the
legislative department of the government, no matter by what motive it may
be actuated, should so tar transcend the proper boundaries which have been
prescribed to its authority, as to invade these sacred rights, protected as they
are by a law higher than its enactments, it is the pride of our system, that an
independent judiciary, whose duty it is to hold the scales of justice in equi-
poise, as well between the citizen and the government as between citizen and
citizen, will vindicate the majesty of the law, and maintain the good faith and
justice of the government, by declaring all such enactments as violate the
fundamental law, inoperative, null and void.
Let us apply these great principles to the case now before your Honor.
An attorney of this court, whose name has appeared upon the rolls as an offi-
cer of court for nearly fifty years, whose private and professional character
are of the most elevated rank ; who has filled with distinction the position of
a judge ; who was a Union man as long as there was a possibility of prevent-
ing the rupture ; who never bore arms against the Government of the United
States, or held office under the Confederate States; who has violated no rule
of the common law ; committed no contempt of court ; collected no money
which he has refused to pay over ; acted in bad faith to no client ; nor has
758 APPENDIX.
he been charged, indicted, or convicted under any penal law of this State, or
of the United States ; and who has received a full pardon from the President
of the United States for any and every act which might, even by implication,
be construed as a violation of the law, because he cannot take a test oath that
he never "aided, counselled, countenanced, or encouraged" any one who bore
arms against the United States, is to be driven from the bar unless your
Honor can protect his rights by the decision which you may feel it your duty
to pronounce in this case.
While he refuses to take the test oath, who says he has been guilty of
rebellion, or treason, or other crime or misdemeanor, prohibited by any law
of the United States ? What officer of the government stands here as his
accuser, and upon what charge and specifications ? What provision of the
penal code has he violated, and when and where did he do it, and who are
the witnesses against him ? What grand jury has indicted him, and upon
what charge? What petit jury has found him guilty ? What judge has pro-
nounced sentence upon him, and when was it done, and where is the record ?
One of the fundamental maxims of the common law which has been
approved by the ablest jurists and sanctioned by the wisdom of ages is, that
every man shall be presumed to be innocent till the contrary is proven. The
attorney is entitled to the benefit of this salutary rule. He stands before
you to-day as did the woman, over eighteen hundred years ago, before the
Judge of all the earth, with no accuser, and I trust the judgment of your
Honor will be: neither do I accuse thee. He stands with the presumption
of innocence in his favor, and as no proof is offered to the contrary that pre-
sumption becomes conclusive. How then is this court to punish him by the
forfeiture of his property in his profession, and by taking from him his
means of livelihood, for the commission of an offence of which the presump-
tion of innocence, by a rule of law which you cannot disregard, is conclusive
in his favor ? Such a proceeding would not only violate the great principles
of Magna Charta, but would be subversive of the very foundations upon which
our system of government rests. In place of the salutary rule above men-
tioned, which has been consecrated by the wisdom of ages, it would estalilish
the contrary one that every man is presumed to be guilty of a criniiuiil viola-
tion of the law till he proves his own innocence. If he has been guilty of no
crime, all must agree that he should suffer no penalty or forfeiture. The
very fact that it is proposed to forfeit his right to practice his profession for
his support — presupposes, contrary to the truth, that his guilt has been estab-
lished before a court of competent jurisdiction. Otherwise the forfeiture is
an unwarrantable and defenceless violation of the great principles of organic
law, laid down by the hicih authorities which I have quoted, and recognized
by every enlightened jurist who has lived under free institutions, in every
age.
But it may be said that large numbers of persons, and among them many
lawyers, have been guilty of treason, or of encouraging rebellion against the
Government of the United States; and that Congress has adopted this mode
of compelling each to discover under oath whether he is one of the number ;
and if he refuses to make the discovery, that he shall be presumed to be
guilty, and the confiscation of his property in his profession shall be the pen-
alty. Truly, this is what Congress has attempted to do, but upon what princi-
ple and by what right? If he has been guilty of a crime it is the right of the
government to liave him prosecuted, convicted and punished by the judgment
of his peers or the law of the land ; but without such conviction the infliction
of corporal punishment upon him, or the confiscation of his estate, or any part
thereof, is unauthorized tyranny ; nor has the government any right to com-
pel him to appear and give testimony against himself, to aid it in procuring
APPENDIX. 759
such conviction. Nemo tenebatur prodere se ipsum is the well established rule
of the common law, and is thus expounded by a very able and accurate
American author: "That when the answer will have a tendency to expose the
witness to a penal liability, or to any kind of punishment, or to a criminal
charge, or to & forfeiture of his estate, the witness is not bound to answer.
And if the fact to which he is interrogated forms but one link in the chain
of testimony which is to convict him, he is protected. And if the witness
declines answering, no inference of the truth of the fact is permitted to be
drawn from that circumstance." [1 Greenl. Ev., sec. 451-453.]
The Constitution of the United States, as originally formed, contained no
provision guarantying to the citizen protection against the violation by Con-
gress of this great first principle. But this protection is carefully provided
in the fifth article of the amendments, proposed at the first session of the
first Congress which was adopted in these words :
"No person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous
crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except cases
arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia when in actual service in
time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same
offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb ; nor shall he he compelled
in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, lib-
erty, or property without due process of law ; nor shall private property be
taken for public use without just compensation."
This is the fundamental law of this land, and any act of Congress in vio-
lation of it is inoperative, null and void, and it is the solemn duty of the
courts so to declare it. And I beg your Honor to bear in mind that this arti-
cle of the Constitution not only denies to Congress the power to compel any
one to be a witness to criminate himself, but it declares plainly and posi-
tively, that no one shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property tvithout due process
of law, giving property precisely the same protection which it gives to life or
liberty.
Has an attorney-at-law a property in his profession ? If so the Constitu-
tion of the United States, as well as Magna Charta, declares that he shall not
be deprived of it without due process of law.
An attorney-at-law is an officer belonging to the courts of justice. [1
Bacon's Abr., 474.] An officer is one who is lawfully invested with an office.
[7 Bacon's Abr., 279.] Offices which are a right to exercise a public or pri-
vate employment, and to take the fees and emoluments thereto belonging,
are also incorporeal hereditaments, whether public, as those of magistrates, or
private, as of bailiffs, receivers, and the like. For a man may have an estate
in them, either to himself and his heirs, or for life, or for a term of years, or
for during pleasure only. [Blackstone's Com., 36.]
By these quotations it appears that a man may have an estate in an office.
What is the meaning of the word estate? In its most extensive sense it is
applied to signify everything in which riches or fortune may consist, and
includes personal and real property. [Bouvier's Law Diet., 516.] According
to Judge Blackstone, hereditaments are a species of estate, and he declares
an office to be an incorporeal hereditament.
An attorney-at-law is tlien, according to the authorities, an officer of the
courts, legally invested with an office. That office is an estate, which may be
for life, or for a terra of years, or during pleasure. That estate is property.
And the Constitution of the United States says no one shall be deprived of
property without due process of law.
It matters not whether it is attempted to be done by means of a test oath,
compelling a party to criminate himself, or in what imaginable form, other
than by due process of law, it is alike void, whatever may be the means
760 APPENDIX.
resorted to for its accomplishment. What power then has Congress to
deprive an attorney of his property in his profession, simply because he re-
fuses to swear whether he has or has not violated the criminal law of the
land, when he has neither been charged with, indicted or convicted of, any
such violation V I deny that it has any such right. This attempt is in viola-
tion of the fundamental law as expounded by the highest authorities, and is
absurd within itself ; and I know of no rule governing courts which could
justify your Honor in the enforcement of any such enactment. The statute
is a nullity and must, in my opinion, be so held whenever and wherever it is
brought in question before any intelligent court.
I further invite your Honor's attention to the fact that the office of attor-
ney and counsellor is recognized as well by the Constitution and laws of the
United States as by the common law.
In the 6th article of the amendments to the Constitution it is declared that
in all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right of a speedy and
public trial by an impartial jury of the State or district wherein the crime
shall have been committed ; to be informed of the nature and cause of the
accusation ; to be confronted with the witnesses against him ; to have com-
pulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance
of counsel for his defence.
The judicial act of 1789 provides that in all the courts of the United States
the parties may plead and manage their own causes person;dly ; or by the
assistance of such counsel or attorney-at-law, as by the rules of said courts
respectively, shall be permitted to manage or conduct causes therein.
The Court will observe that the Congress of 1789 did not attempt to pre-
scribe the qualifications of the attorney, or to say who shall or shall not
practice in the courts, or for what cause an attorney shall be stricken from
the rolls. This is left, as it should be, to the courts or principal officer, to
which the office of attorney is incident, to be determined by rule of courts.
The office of attorney-at-law is clearly incident to ihat of a court, or of
the judge or judges of the court ; and the incidejiit officer is only amenable to
the principal officer, aud may be removed by him — Congress has no such
powers. In 7 Bacon's Abr., "JB-i, and the cases there cited, the law upon this
subject is laid down in tlie following words:
" Wherever an office is incident to another, such incident office is regularly
grantable by him who hath the principal office. On this foundation it hath
biien held that the King's grant of the office of county clerk was void ; it
being inseparably incident to the office of sheriff, and could not by any law
or contriij nee be taken away from him."
If the King's grant of such incident office was void, and so held by his own
courts, and it could not be taken away from the principal office by any hiw
or contrivance, it follows that the King and Parliament together could not
rightfully do it. Where then does the Congress of the United States, re-
strained by a written Constitution, get power to do that which the King and
Parliament together in Great Britain, witliout such restraint, liave no power
to do? The office of county clerk in England, which from time immemorial
has been an incident of the office of sheritf, is certainly no more inseparably
connected with the sheriff's office than is the office of attorney in this coun-
try with that of the courts; and yet the transcendent power of the King and
Parliament cannot, without utter disregard of all principle and precedent,
deprive the principal office of the control of the incident.
I do not deny that Congress may lay down general rules regulating the
proceedings of the courts and the conduct of attorneys. But I do deny that
it can, without usurpation, destroy the constituted courts or deprive them of
their legitimate control over the attorney; or that it can deprive the attor-
APPENDIX. 761
ney of his office when he has not been convicted of violating either the law
of the land or the rules of the court.
But I may be asked if there exists no power in the government to deprive
an attorney of his right to practice. I reply unhesitatingly that there does
not, unless he has forfeited it by his own misconduct, in the violation of the
law ol' the land or the rules of the court, of which he must have been con-
victed by due course of law, when the court of which he is an officer, and to
which alone he is amenable, may strike his name from the rolls. As he is
admitted by the court as an officer of court, without limitation as to time, or
during good behavior, he may hold the office for life unless he forfeits it by
misbehavioi-, of which he can never be convicted without trial. In Bacon's
Abr., vol. 7, page 308, the law on this subject is laid down in the following
clear and strong language :
" If an office be granted to a man to have and enjoy so long as he shall
behave himself well in it, the grantee hath an estate of freehold in the office ;
for since nothing but his misbehaviors can determine his interest, no man can
fix a shorter term than his life ; since it must be his own act (which the law
does not presume to foresee,) which only can make his estate of shorter con-
tinuance than his life."
This is the tenure by which the lawyer holds his office. And it is precisely
the same by which the English judges and judges of the Courts of the United
States hold their offices. Who ever heard of a judge of the United States
Courts having been dismissed from office without previous trial and convic-
tion of misbehavior ?
I will now proceed to show (while the mode of trial is not the same,) that
this is the rule applied by courts to attorneys : " An attorney may be struck
from the rolls for any ill practice, attended with fraud and corruption, and
committed against the obvious rules of justice and common honesty." [1
Bacon's Abr., 586.]
This is the general rule of law upon the subject; but, as the following
quotations will show, he will be heard when the charge has been preferred,
and must be convicted before he will be deprived of his office.
" When an attorney has been fraudulently admitted, or convicted after ad-
mission of felony or other offence which renders him unfit to be continued as
an attorney, he may be struck off the rolls."
" And if an attorney practices after he has been convicted of forgery, per-
jury, subornation of perjury, or common barratry, he is liable to be trans-
ported." [Same authority, page 508.]
" An attorney will be struck from the rolls when he has been convicted of
subornation of perjury." [1 McCord's S. C Reps., 379.]
" But the court will not proceed against such attorney before conviction."
[2 Halsted, 162.]
" An attorney convicted of felony and punished for it was struck off the
rolls." [Ex-parte Brownall, Cowper's Reps., 829.]
" On a mere allegation that an attorney has been guilty of larceny his name
will not be stricken off the rolls ; his conviction must precede." [Bacon's Abr.,
506.]
These are the rules which govern in cases when it is proposed to strike an
attorney from the rolls for a violation of public law, wliich will only be done
upon his conviction of such violation. As he is an officer of the court and
amenable to the court, he may be struck for a wilful violation of a rule of
court, when his act involves criminality, or for a wilful contempt of court,
but never without a hearing nor until his guilt is established.
But I may be told that the Congress of the United States, in time of war,
may seize and confiscate the property, whether in an office or any other kind.
762 APPENDIX.
of a citizen suspected of disloyalty or of having aided in rebellion, and de-
prive him of liberty or property till he has proved, or at least svrorn to, his
innocence. I deny it. Congress has no right to violate the Constitution
either in peace or wur.
The rule laid down in the Constitution in plain language is this : Xo per-
son shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime unless
on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury. The exception to the rule
is that persons in the land or naval forces, and persons in the militia when
in actual service in tiine of war or public danger may be held to answer with-
out such indictment or presentment of a grand jury. Nor can Congress de-
prive any person (not within the exception) of life, liberty or property,
without due process of law. Congress may by law provide for the forfeiture
of the estate of a person attainted of treason, but then only during his life-
time. There can be no forfeiture even for treason till there is a conviction,
and the moment the person convicted is executed the forfeiture is at an end.
And as there can be no corruption of blood, the estate, if inheritable, imme-
diately descends to his legal heirs or devisees. In no other instance that
occurs to me now does the Constitution give Congress the power to forfeit
the estate or property of anyone, for any offence whatever, except in the case
of judges and other officers on conviction on impeachment, which works a
forfeiture of their estates in their offices, but of no other property or estate,
and never before conviction.
Congress has, therefore, no right to deprive any lawyer of his estate in his
office, or of any other property (not needed for public use upon just compen-
sation) until he has been convicted. Xor has Congress any right to make
him a witness to prove his own guilt, or to draw any inftrence of his guilt
from his refusal to answer. [7 Porter's Reports, 381.]
But suppose I were to admit that Congress does possess this power in time
of war, and that the act was valid during the war, how does that deprive the
lawyer of his office now ? The war is at an end ; and so proclaimed by our
noble, patriotic President. The war is not only at an end, but the whole
South has acquiesced in good faitli in the results ; and her sons, whose honor
is as stainless as their gallantry upon the battle-field was conspicuous, have
pledged that honor, under the solemnity of an oath, for their future loyalty.
That pledge will never be violated. 1 think your Honor will not accuse me
of vain-boasting when I say I know something of the feelings and sentiments
of the people of Georgia, and I tell you to-day that, whatever may have been
their opinions as to the original abstract question of the right of secession,
they have abandoned it forever. Since the days of Jefferson and Hamilton
it has been, so to speak, a litigated question, and there was but one court
which had jurisdiction to pronounce an authoritative decision in the case —
that was the high Court of Appeals, recognized by all nations as of universal
jurisdiction, where grave litigated questions between states or communities,
that no other court has power to adjudicate, are in the last resort decided by
wager of battle. This case has been carried before that court. Both parties
were ably represented. The case is decided; the judgment is against us.
"We have already paid an enormous bill of cost. But we acquiesce in the
result, and swear before Heaven that we will abide by it in good faith.
Admit then, for the purpose of the argument, that the law was valid dur-
ing the war, and where is its binding force now that the war is at an end ?
In that view of it, we have the very case laid down in the books where the
reason of the law having ceased, the law itself ceases.
I have already shown, I trust, to the satisfaction of the court, that the office
of a lawyer or his right to practice his profession is property, and as such that
it is protected by the Constitution of the United States, and that he cannot
APPENDIX. 763
be deprived of it without due process of law. If Congress has power to
deprive him of this property on his refusal to take a test oath, the tender of
which it will not be pretended is due process of law, it has the same power to
deprive him of his library, his dwelling-house, chosen en action, and any and
all other property he may possess, till he takes the oath, and if he can never
take it, the confiscation of his whole property may become complete and per-
petual, without indictment, trial by jury, or conviction of any offence what-
ever.
Again, if Congress has power to deprive a lawyer of his property in his
oflBce till he takes a test oath, it has the same power to prohibit any citizen
from following any other profession or avocation till he has done the same.
If it had power to enact this law, it has the same power to vary, alter, or
amend it at pleasure. If it may constitutionally do what it has done ; as the
freedom of religion has no higher guaranty in the Constitution than the pro-
tection of property; it may pass a law that no one shall preach the Gospel
till he has sworn that he believes baptism by immersion the only mode ; or
it may enact that no one shall practice medicine till he has taken an oath
that he never did, and never will use opium in his practice ; or that no one
shall plow till he has filed his aflBdavit that he will never use a turning plow,
as the Creator placed the soil on top of the ground where it should remain ;
or the party in power in Congress, no matter which it may be, may prescribe
a test oath that no person shall ever vote again who does not make oath
that he never voted for the other party ; and may justify it upon the ground,
at least satisfactory to itself, that its principles are the only true principles
of the government, and that the public good imperatively requires that they
be carried out in practice, which might not be done without the aid of the
oath.
Let the judiciary sustain this assumption of power by Congress, and it
may close the courts in the South indefinitely ; shut the doors of the churches;
stop every spindle of the manufacturer ; quench the fires of every furnace in
blast ; lock the doors of the merchant, and drive the plowman from his hon-
est labor — all by the simple appliance of a test oath.
And as nineteen-twentieths of the people of Georgia could not probably
take it. Congress by a test oath declaring that no one shall hold property
who cannot take it, may confiscate nineteen-twentieths of the property of
Georgia, and indeed of the South, by the exercise of this power; for if it
has power to forfeit the property a lawyer has in his profession by this
means, it has as much power to confiscate any and all other property of all
who refuse to take any test oath it may prescribe to any or all the people of
the United States. Establish the principle that Congress can exclude all
men from office or the practice of any profession or avocation who do not
swear that they never bore arms against the government, and it follows that
it may enact a law that no man shall hold office who fails to swear that he
did bear arms in defence of the government. If the enactment of test oaths
becomes the settled and approved policy of the government, the people of
other sections of the Union will soon find that the Southern people are not
the only sufferers.
I may be told that the British Parliament centuries ago enacted test oaths,
and that no man was allowed to hold office until he had taken the sacra-
ments of the Church of England and the oaths of abjuration, etc. This is
true ; and it is also true that the enlightenment of the age and the triumph of
reason have long since swept these oaths from the statute book, and the Jew
and the dissenter sit to-day by the side of the churchman in the Parliament
of the realm.
But it does not follow from this historical fact that Congress now has or
764 APPENDIX.
ever did possess any such powers. The Parliament of Great Britain lias
establisiied a particular church. Has the Congress of the United States any
such power? Parliament has established an aristocracy, and provided for
the grant, by the King, of titles of nobility. Can Congress do the same?
Certainly not. Why not? Because there is a written constitution in this
country which expressly forbids it. There was none in England. Such is
the omnipotence of the Parliament of Great Britain that, with the consent of
the King, it may change what they call the constitution at pleasure. The
Congress of the United States with the President has no such power. The
Parliament of Great Britain has power to confiscate the property of the sub-
ject beyond the period of his life, and either with or without the use of test
oaths, if it should so will to deprive a subject of his proDerty without due
process of law. The written Constitution of the United States, which it has
no power to change, denies to Congress the power to do either. From the
difference in the powers possessed by Parliament and by Congress, the Court
will readily perceive the reason why the British test oaths can, as precedents,
be of no avail to the advocates of similar oaths in this country.
_ I wish also to invite the attention of your Honor to this view of this ques-
tion. I have already shown that the Congress of the United States has, by
statute, authorized parties in the courts to manage their causes by the assist-
ance of such counsel or attorneys-at-law as by the rules of said Courts re-
spectively shall be permitted to manage or conduct cases therein, and that the
Constitution guaranties to the accused the assistance of counsel for his
deieuce. Now, I deny that Congress has the power after a party has employed
an attorney under this act and confided to him the management of his cause,
to deprive him of his assistance when the attorney has been convicted of
neither malpractice, crime nor misdemeanor.
I will now proceed to show that this enactment is obnoxious to anotlier
grave constitutional objection. The Constitution of the United States de-
clares that no bill of attainder, or ex post facto law shall be passed.
By a bill of attainder I understand a judicial sentence by Parliament, or a
legislative usurpation of judicial power. As when the Parliament passed a
bill to attaint A. B. of high treason, and directed his execution and the con-
fiscation of his estate. This act of Congress is in the nature of a bill of
attainder. It does not attaint a lawyer of high treason, but it does assume
judicial functions, and confiscates his property without judicial trial or judg-
ment. And it usurps the power which properly belongs to the Courts alone,
of detennining who shall and who shall not fill the office, which is insepara-
bly incident to the Court. This objection embraces the case of the applicant
for admission to the bar as fully as that of the member of the bar. The
Court prescribes a rule upon conformity to which any citizen has a right to
be admitted to the bar. It belongs to the Court to fill this incident office,
and Congress has no right to interfere, while he who complies with the rule
of the Court has an unquestionable right to be admitted to practice. The
student expends his money and time in preparation, and when ready to com-
ply with tlie rule of court he applies for admission and is met by a quasi bill
of attainder in the nature of a judicial sentence passed by Congress, that he
shall not be admitted on complying with the rule of court, but that it is the
judgment of Congress that he must also take a certain test oath not required
by the Courts, before he can be admitted, and that on refusal to tnke it he
stand convicted of aiding and abetting rebellion. If Congress may exclude
all applicants for admission till they take the test oath, it may so sliape the
oath that no man ever can take it, and it may thus create a monopoly in the
office of attorney in the hands of the few now at the bar who can take the
oath, and at their death destroy the office altogether, notwithstanding the
APPENDIX. 765
constitutional guaranty, that every person accused of a criminal offence
shall have the assistance of con7isel for his defence.
This law is not only in the nature of a bill of attainder, which is forbidden
by the Constitution, but it is clearly an ex post facto law as well, when ap-
plied to attorneys of the Court, or to applicants for admission to practice.
An ex post facto law is thus defined by Mr. Justice Chase, delivering the
opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Calder and
wife vs. Bull and wife, 3d Dallas, 386.
"1. Every law that makes an action, done before the parsing of the laws
and which was innocerd when done, criminal, and puuiphes such action.
" 2. Every law that aggravates a crime or makes it greater than it was when
committed.
" 3. Every law that changesi\\& punishment, and inflicts a greater punishment
than the law annexed to the crime when committed.
"4. Every law that alters the legal rules of evidence and receives less or
different testimony than the law required at the time of the commission of
the offence in order to convict the offenders." See also 1 Kent's Com., 408,
Sergeant on Const. Law, 356; Smith's Com. on Const. Construction, 372.
In Fletcher vs. Peck 6, Cranch Reps., 138, Chief Justice Marshall, deliver-
ing the opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States, says: "An ex
pod facto law is one which renders an act punishable in a manner in which it
was not punishable when it was committed. Such a law may inflict penal-
ties on the person, or may inflict pecuniary penalties which swell the public
treasury. The Legislature is prohibited from passing a law bv which a
man's estate or any part of it, shall be seized for a crime which was not
declared by some previous law to render him liable to that punishment."
In the case of Ross (2 Pick., 169) it was held that if a statute add a new
punishment or increase the old one, for an offence committed before its pas-
sage, such an act would be ex post facto. The party ought to know, says the
court, at the time of committing the offence the whole extent of the punish-
ment.
Now I beg the court to bear in mind that the act applying the test oath
to attorneys-at-law was passed on the 24th of January, 1865 — very near the
end of the struggle. It fixes no period of time, as that he has not aided the
rebellion since the date of the act, but it is general. The language is, " That
I have never voluntarily borne arms," etc., embracing the whole period of his
life. Now suppose the lawyer, or the applicant for admission, did bear arms
against the government, or did aid or countenance those who did in 1861,
is'not this an ex post facto law as to him ? AVas the forfeiture of his prop-
erty in his office, or of his right of being admitted to the office on complying
with the rules prescribed by the court, any part of the penalty enacted by
Congress against the offence, at or before the time of its commission? It
certainly was not. It formed no part of the penalty till the 24th of January,
1865. This, then, is a law that repeals no part of the penalty prescribed by
law against the offence in 1861 ; it only adds to the penalty already in existence
the forfeiture of his right to practice law in the courts of the United States, or,
in the language of Mr. Justice Chase, it inflicts a greater punishment than the
law annexed to the crime when committed. In addition to the old penalty, it
seizes and forfeits his estate in his office, which could not be done, because
no previous law, in the language of Chief Justice Marshall, " rendered him
liable to that punishment." And in the language of the Supreme Court of
Massachusetts, in Ross' case, above cited, if it does not increase the old, it
" adds a new punishment " for an offence committed before its passage.
How could the attorney, at the time of committing the offence in 1861,
know, in the language of the last named court, the ivhole extent of the
766 APPENDIX. .
punishment which was not prescribed till January, 1865 ? It is also ex post
facto when tested by the fourth rule laid down by Mr. Justice Chase. It
changes the legal rule of evidence and receives less and different testimony
than the law required at the time of the commission of the offence, to con-
vict the offender; in this that it makes his bare refusal to answer on oath,
whether he has or has not committed the offence, conclusive evidence of his
guilt, and is in effect a judgment of forfeiture.
It may be contended here as it has been elsewhere, that this test oath is
not a penalty, nor the act imposing it a penal statute, but that it is an addi-
tional qualijication for office prescribed by Congress. It is not necessary that
I discuss here the power of Congress to prescribe other qualifications than
those prescribed in the Constitution for its own members, or any other
officer of the United States. I presume there are few advocates of the position
that Congress has power to prescribe the qualifications of any but officers of
the United States. What power has Congress to prescribe the qualifications
of the Governor of a State, a member of the State Legislature, or a Judge
of a State court? It certainly has none, though they are all citizens of the
United States, and all officers. An attorney-at-law is an officer of court but
not an officer of the United States. He is admitted by the court, under
rules prescribed by it, to practice in the court, and is answerable alone to the
court.
This is the construction given to it by Congress itself. The act of July,
ly62, prescribed the test oath for all officers of the United States. That of
January, 1865, declares that attorneys-at-law shall take the same oath
before they are permitted to practice in the United States courts. If Con-
gress had considered them officers of the United States they were fully em-
braced in the Act of July, 1862, and it was an idle waste of time to pass the
Act of January, 1865. It is very clear then that the test oath is not pre-
scribed as an additional qualification for an officer. The oath was intended
as a penalty, and the statute as a penal one, against those who aided in the
war against the United States. It was not intended to qualify the lawyers
of this bar for the practice. It was intended to forfeit their right to practice.
In support of the position that a statute prescribing a test oath, which
deprives a citizen of his right to hold office is a penal one, I refer your Honor
to the case of Leigh, 1 Munford's V». Reps.; and the case of Dorsey, 7 Por-
ter's Ala. Reps. Each of these States had passed stringent acts against
duelling, and had prescribed an oath to be taken in Virginia by all officers of
the State Government ; and in Alabama by all State officers and practicing
attorneys, that each had not before engaged in a duel and would never en-
gage in one, while he remained in the office. In each case the applicant
moved to be admitted to the Bar of the Supreme Court without taking the
oath; and in each case the court sustained the motion. The decisions are
lengthy, but as they are very able I shall not apologize for reading portions
of each to your Honor. And upon the point to which I last ?*eferred : I in-
vite the attention of the court especially to the following language of the
judges: In Leigh's case, page 482, Judge Hoane who was greatly distin-
guished for his ability, says : " However laudable the object of the act to
suppress duelling may be, it is still a highly /)enaZ law and must be construed
strictly. It is unusually penal if not tyrannical, in compelling a person to
stipulate upon oath, by the 3d section, not only in relation to his past
conduct and present resolution, but also for the future state of his mind. Thus
premising that this act is highly and unusually penal, I will, under the influ-
ence of the rules for construing penal statutes, proceed to apply it to the
case before us."
Judge Fleming in the same case says : " The act under consideration
APPENDIX. 767
being a compulsory law (however salutary it may be), imposing on the
officers of the Government an oath unknown to the former law of the State,
or of the United States ; though there be no pecuniary penalty inflicted on
those who refuse to take the oath therein prescribed ; I cannot but consider
it as a penal statute, and as such must give it a strict interpretation." Again
he says : " Admitting that attorneys are comprehended in the act, it has or
ought*to have a proyjective and not retrospective operation, and cannot afiect
officers of any description appointed to office prior to the passage of the act." In
Dorsey's case, 7 Porter, 366, Judge Goldthwaite says : " I have omitted any
argument to show that disqualijication from office or from th& pursuit of a law-
ful avocation is a punishment — that it is so is too evident to require any illus-
tration ; indeed it may be questioned whether any ingenuity could devise
any penalty which would operate more forcibly on society." Again he says :
*' A citizen is informed that by the laws of the State, he is entitled to aspire
to any office or piu'sue any other avocation which any other citizen can. —
Yet when he is about to enter in the office or avocation, he is required to
swear to his innocence of a particular crime; it then becomes evident that
if he cannot truly take the oath required, he is excluded. Can it be
doubted that lor all the purposes of the disqualification the guilt of the individ-
ual is ascertained? in what does it differ from the general enactment that a
candidate for office shall be required to prove and establish his innocence of
a specified crime ? Admitting a person to be guilty, he is neither accused, tried
or convicted by any tribunal known to the laws, yet he is punished with unerr-
ing certainty, and the utmost celerity; his conscience is made his sole ac-
cuser and judge; his punishment commences with the commission of
the crime, and terminates only when he ceases to exist ; he is excluded from
the sympathy of his peers — no legal doubt can intervene to produce his
acquittal — an error of his judgment involves his soul in the awful guilt of
pei-jury, or punishes him without guilt. I have no hesitation in declaring
that this act provides a mode of ascertaining and punishing guilt which is
not only unwarranted by the Constitution, but is also in direct contravention
of several of the most important provisions of the declaration of rights, by
which the liberties and privileges of the citizens are guarded. * *
When once it is admitted or proved that a citizen has a right to aspire to
office or to pursue any lawful avocation, it seems to me impossible that he
can be legally deprived of that right by a punishment for an offence com-
mitted without a trial by jury ; and I can perceive no sound distinction
between a law which deprives one of his right without a trial, and that
which ascertains and punishes his guilt by an illegal mode of trial." He then
refers to the Governor's right to grant pardons, and says : '• We cannot pre-
sume that the General Assembly intended by this act to interfere with the
constitutional prerogative of mercy vested in the Executive, yet this act, if
coustitutional, imposes a penalty which cannot be remitted, and inflicts a
piuiishment beyond the reach of Executive clemency."
In the same case, Judge Osmond says, page 379 :
" This is a highly penal law ; it excludes, unless its terms are complied with,
all persons from practicing as attorneys and counsellors at law in the courts
of this State. It must, therefore, receive a strict construction, in accordance
with well established principles, and the authority to pass it be clearly and
fairly discoverable from the Constitution." And on page 38 : " It is so offensive
to the first principles of justice to require a man to give evidence against
himself in a penal case, that independent of the constitutional interdict, no
one in this enlightened age will be found to advocate the principle." But it
may be said this is not a case of this kind, as no corporal or pecuniary pun-
ishment is the consequence of a refusal to take the oath against duelling.
768 APPENDIX.
But are not the results the same, whether punishment follows from the ad-
mission, or is imposed as a consequence of silence? Can ingenuity make a
distinction between a punishment inflicted in this mode, as a consequence
of a refusal to take the oath, by closing one of the avenues to wealth and
fame, and a positive pecuniary mulct? If there is a difference, I think it
entirely in favor of the latter, so far as the amount or weight of the penalty
could effect the decision of the case. On page 381 : " With great deference
to the opinion of others who may differ from me, I think that the requisition by
the Legislature, in substance and effect, requires the applicant for a license
to give evidence agninst himself, and that, if not within the letter, is at least
within the words of the prohibition — the very foundation of which is that
every one is presumed to be innocent till the contrary appears."
He then refers to the constitutional provision that the crime or offence
must be ascertained by due course of law, and says : The term " due course
'of law " has a settled and ascertained meaning, and was intended to protect
people against privations of their lives, liberty, or property, in any other
mode than through the intervention of the judicial tribunals of the coun-
try. But the law seeks to ascertain a fact exalted into a crime and
punished in a particular manner — not by the judgment of a competent
court, but by the admission of the offender, and construing his silence as
evidence of guilt.
In a case of Greene vs. Biggs, 1 Curtis, Circuit Court, Reps. 325, Judge
Custisof the Supreme Court of the United States, presiding in the Circuit
Court, defines what is meant by the law of the land. He says : " Certainlj' this
does not mean any act which the Assembly may choose to pass. If it did the
legislative will could inflict a forfeiture of life, liberty, or property, without a tried.
The exposition of the words as they stand in Magna Charta, as well as in the
American Constitution, has been that they require ' due process of law,' and in
this is necessarily implied and included the right to answer to and contest
the charge ; and the consequent right to be discharged from it, unless it is
proved." Lord Coke, in giving an interiiretation of these words in Magna
Charla, 2 Inst. 50, 51, says they mean," due process of law," in which is included
presentment or indictment, and being brought in to answer thereto. And the
jurists of our country have not relaxed this interpretation. "It follows," says
he, speaking of the case before him, " that a law which would preclude the
accused from answering to and contesting tlie charge, * * « * and
which should condemn him to fine and forfeiture unheard, if he failed to com-
ply with the requisition (to give security) would deprive him of his liberty
or property — not by the law of the land, but by an arbitrary and uncon-
stitutional exertion of legislative power."
Judge Pitman, in the same case, refers to the fact that the statute under
consideration rendered any one engaged in selling spirituous liquors an in-
competent juror, and authorized the question to be propounded to him, and
says:
" This law authorizes the court to inquire of the juror who may be chal-
lenged on this account ; it is true, the law says ' he may decline to answer,'
but what then? Is the fact to be proved by other evidence? No; this
silence is considered as sufficient proof, and he is excluded accordingly. He
is, therefore, compelled to answer, if he does not wish to be excluded as
unworthy to sit as a juror, or does not wish to be considered as concerned
in a traffic which may be considered as infamous. The maxim of the com-
mon law recognized by the Constitution is that every man is presumed to
be innocent until he is proved to be guilty. The whole spirit of this Jaw
appears to me to be at variance with the rights of property as well as person.
The Legislature has no right by au act to confiscate the property of the citi-
APPENDIX. 769
zen ; it may be forfeited for a violation of law, but this must be done with-
out affecting the rights of the owner thereof to a jury trial."
I beg the pardon of the Court for having taken up so much time reading
authorities, but as they are in point, and are the opinions of able judges,
and as the question is an important one, I have relied upon the indul-
gence of the Court. These authorities establish the points I have taken
against this law, to my mind, beyond all question :
1. Tiiat the attorney is an officer of Court ; that he has a property in that
office ; and that it is for life or good behavior.
2. That this act of Congress violates the social compact, Magna Charta,
and the Constitution of the United States, by depriving him of that property
without due process of law, in this, that he is in effect convicted, and his
property forfeited without presentment or indictment of a grand jury ; that
he is denied a trial by jury ; tliat he is denied the right to be confronted with
the witnesses against hun; that he is denied compulsory process for obtain-
ing witnesses in his favor ; that he is denied the assistance of counsel for his
defence ; and that he is compelled to be a witness against himself in a crim-
inal case, or that his silence is construed as conclusive evidence of guilt.
3. That the act is in the nature of a bill of attainder, and is an usurpa-
tion by the legislative department of the Government of the functions as-
signed by the Constitution to the judicial department, being a sentence of
forfeiture, pronounced by Congress, which being a jtidicial and not a legisla-
tive act, can only be done by the judiciary after trial and conviction.
4. That the law is not and was not intended to be a law prescribing
qualifications for office, but a penal law forfeiting his property for the com-
mission of an act, which at the time of its commission had no such penalty
annexed by law, and that the act or offence is punished by this law in a
manner different from that prescribed by law, at the time of its commission ;
and that the law is for this reason ex post facto and void.
But suppose the doctrine to have been fully established that Congress has
power to forfeit the property which an attorney has in his office, for having
borne arms against the Government, or countenanced those who did, and
that it may use test oaths for the purpose of ascertaining who is and who
is not guilty, compelling each to suffer the penalty of guilt if he refuses to
answer — in other words, drawing contrary to all rule in such case a conclu-
sive inference of guilt from a refusal to answer, and pronouncing and ex-
ecuting judgment accordingly. How does the case then stand? The office
of the attorney would be forfeited so soon as the court met and tendered the
oath and he refused to take it. But certainly not till then. Why not? Be-
cause Congress makes the refusal to take the oatli conclusive evidence of guilt ;
or rather it forfeits his estate because he is gnilty, and makes the refusal to
take the oath stand in the place of trial by jury, and a judgment of guilty
rendered by the court. Just as if the Legislature of Georgia should pass an
act (no matter how absurd) that when a man is found dead in any county,
every man, woman and child in the county, who refuses to swear that he
or she was not a party to his death, shall be taken by the sheriff and hanged,
and all his or her property shall be confiscated.
But now suppose before the oath is tendered to any, or any one is executed,
the pardoning power should grant a full and free pai'don to every person in the
county, could the sheriff after the pardon with knowledge of its existence, pro-
ceed to hang any one, or to seize the property of any one as forfeited? All
must admit that he could not. The pardon having been granted before judg-
ment or execution, it leaves the accused in precisely the same condition in
which they stood before the charge was made against them ; not only with the
right to life and liberty, but to the peaceable enjoyment of all their property.
49
770 APPENDIX.
Now the truth is, that most of the attorneys of this court have received,
either under the General Amnesty Proclamation of the President, or upon
special application, full pardon from the President of the United States,
before any court has been held in the State, or the test oath has been ten-
dered to, or refused to be taken by, any one. Admit, then, that the refusal to
take the test oath stands in place of a conviction of guilt, and it can have
no application to any one pardoned before trial or conviction. It certainly
follows, then, that the property of an attorney in his office which was not
forfeited prior to his pardon, cannot now be forfeited for the offence for
which he was pardoned. In support of this position I quote the following
authorities :
" It seems agreed that a pardon of treason or felony even after an attainder,
so far clears the party from the infamy and all other consequences thereof,
that he may have an action against any one who afterwards calls him traitor
or felon ; for the pardon makes him as it were a new man." [7 Bacon's Abr.,
416.]
The Court will please note the lq,nguage that the pardon, even after an
attainder, clears the party from the infamy, and all other consequences ihereot.
A much stronger case than the one now at Bar, unless the act of Congress
imposing this test oath is held by the court to be a bill of attainder, and if so
it is unconstittitional and void. But if the act is not a bill of attainder the
pardon granted before conviction or attainder must necessarily leave the
party in the precise legal status which he occupied prior to the commission
of the offence.
It was formerly doubted whether the pardon could do more than take away
the punishment, leaving the crime and its disabling consequences unremoved.
But it is now settled that a pardon, whether by the King or by act of Parlia-
ment, removes not only the punishment, but o// the legal c/jsoiiVtVies consequen,t
on the crime. [7 Bacon's Abr., 415 ; 2 Russell on Crimes, 975 ; Hob., 681 ; 2
Hal.'s P. C, 272; 2 Salk., 690; 1 Lord Raym., 39; 4 State Trials, 681; Cas.
Tenp. Holt, 683; 5 State Trials, 171; Fitzg., 167.]
The effect of such pardon by the King is to make the offender a new man,
to acquit him of all corporeal penalties tii^d forfeitures annexed to that offence
for which he obtains his pardon. [4 Blackstone's Com., 402.]
I might add other authorities, but deem it tmnecessary. Those already
quoted establish the position beyond controversy, that the effect of the par-
don is to acquit the offender of all penalties andforfeitures annexed to the offence.
It follows conclusively that the attorney or applicant for admission to the
bar who has received a pardon, before indictment or conviction, stands
before this court in precisely the condition in which he would have stood,
and with all the rights which lie would have had, if he had never committed
the offence. To hold that Congress can change this, is to hold that Con-
gress has power to destroy the pardoning power vested by the Constitution
in the President of the United States alone.
I trust I might safely rest this case here, but before I take my seat I de-
sire to make a few remarks on the law of nations as to the relative rights
and duties of those who were lately at war with each other.
Upon this subject I call your attention to the language of Vattel in his
Law of Nations in his chapter upon Civil War. He says :
"And if there existed no reason to justify the insurrection (a circum-
stance which perhaps never happens), even in such case it becomes necessary,
as we have above observed, to grant an amnesty, when the offenders are
numerous. When the amnesty is once published and accepted, all the past
must be buried in oblivion; nor must any one be called to account for what
has been done during the disturbance. And in general, the sovereign whose
APPENDIX. 771
word ought ever to be sacred, is bound to the faithful observance of every
promise he has made, even to rebels.^' [Vattel's Law of Nations, pp. 423 and
424.]
The terms of capitulation have not only been agreed npon in this case,
but the Civil War is at an end. The vanquished have in good faith com-
plied with those terms on their part. The Northern construction of the Consti-
tution is established, and slavery is forever abolished. The amnesty has
been published and accepted. Then, in the language of this distinguished
author, the " past should be buried in oblivion," and neither Judge Law nor
any one else should be called to account here or elsewhere, by test oath or
otherwise, for what was done by him in accordance with the usages of civil-
ized warfare, "during the disturbance."
This view of this question has also the sanction and authority of Divine
Inspiration. In the Bible the distinction between the blood of war and the
blood shed in peace, is clearly drawn — the binding obligation to carry out
in good faith an amnesty once tendered and accepted is enforced — and the
infliction of punishment upon the party who has received the pardon or
amnesty for acts done during the war, is condemned.
After the death of Saul, King of Israel, war existed between his son as his
heir, and David, the anointed of God, about the succession to the throne.
Abner commanded the forces of the son of Saul, and Joab those of David.
A battle was fought, in which Joab was victorious. While Abner was re-
treating, he was followed by Asaliel, the brother of Joab, who, after having
been warned to desist from the pursuit which he refused to do, was slain by
Abner. After this Abner sought an interview with King David, received
amnesty, and was sent away in peace.
On learning this Joab was greatly displeased, and without the knowledge
of the King sent and brought him back and slew him because he had slain
his brother in battle. In other words, Joab slew Abner after he had made
peace with the King, because of an act done during the war.
At a later period in King David's life, his son Absalom rebelled against
him, and drove him from his throne, and without just cause plunged Israel
into civil war. Absalom made Amasa the leader of his forces, and the forces
of King David were led by Joab. Before the battle commenced. King
David gave strict orders to Joab, that neither he nor any of his men should
harm tlie person of Absalom. During the battle Absalom became entangled
by his hair in the boughs of a tree, where Joab found him and slew him, in
violation of the King's orders, though peace had neither been made, nor had
Absalom been pardoned, nor did the act violate any of the then usages of
war. King David wept bitterly over the death of his rebellious son. After-
wards Amasa who commanded the armies of Absalom during the war was
pardoned by the King, and placed in command of his forces in an expedition
against Sheba, who had raised an insurrection. Joab met Amasa on the
march, and smote and slew him.
King David was a man inspired of God, and is said to have been a man
after God's own heart. He was a warrior most of his life ; and understood
both the rules of war, and the Divine will upon the subject. Finally he lay
upon his death-bed on the brink of the grave and the verge of eternity. In
this solemn hour with full knowledge of his condition, filled with the spirit
of inspiration, he gave his memorable charge to Solomon, his son, who was
to succeed him upon his throne. In that charge among other things he
commanded him to slay Joab, or in other words not to let his hoary head go
down to the grave in peace. Not because he slew Absalom, the King's son,
in violation to the King's order. The blood of Absalom was shed in battle ;
772 APPENDIX.
it was therefore the blood of war ; and much as it grieved the King's heart,
he remembered it not upon his death-bed, against Joab as a crime. But Joab
had slain Abner and Amasa after the war, in each case, was at an end and
they had made peace with the King. For their slaughter David ordered Sol-
omon, his son, to take the life of Joab. Why? In David's own language,
because he shed "the blood of war in peace." This showed the obligation
which in the estimation of this inspired man rested upon the victor, after
he had made peace and extended amnesty, to protect the rights of the van-
quished and to maintain the utmost good faith in carrying ont the terms
of the capitulation. The fact that Abner had slain Joab's brother in battle
was held to be no justification for the slaughter of Abner by Joab after the war
was at an end. The slaughter of Asahel was the shedding of the blood of
war. The slaughter of Abner was the shedding of the blood of war in peace.
The first was justifiable homicide, the second was murder.
In conclusion, I have only to add that I have satisfied my own mind, and
I trust-the mind of the Court, that the statute requiring the test oath is in
violation of tlie Constitution of the United States, and is for that reason
void. And that the Divine law and the laws of nations agree, that when
war is at an end, and peace is proclaimed or amnesty and pardon granted ta
the vanquished, as to the applicant in this case, all the past must he buried in
oblivion, and no one should be called to account for what was done " during
its continuance." And that he who forfeits the property of those who have
made peace, for acts done during hostilities, violates the law of nations;
while he who sheds the blood of those who have conformed to the terms of
the capitidation after hostilities have ended, "sheds the blood of war in
peace," and violates not only the law of nations, but the law revealed by
the living God.
Atlanta Constitution, Wednesday, Jidij 7, 1880.
Our Country. — Speech of Hon. Joseph E. Brown, Delivered on thk
Third of July, 1880, at the City Hall in Atlanta, Ga., on Con-
stitutional Rights, National Issues and the Duties of the
Hour.
The citizens of Atlanta, celebrating the 4th of July on Saturday, the 3d,
assembled in large numbers at the city hall. And at 3 o'clock Capt. John
Milledge read the Declaration of Independence. After which Senator
Brown, being present by invitation, spoke as follows :
Ladies and Gendemen: I have been invited here by the committee of
arrangements to discuss, as the invitation says, "the national issues of the
present presidential campaign." Of course on an occasion of this character
it is not expected that I will discuss those issues in a partisan manner, or
that there will be any vituperation or abuse of any one in my address. The
object of the committee doubtless was that I should refer to the great princi-
ples of our grand constitutional system, and should point out such course as
in my opinion will best promote the future happiness and welfare of the
American people.
I shall not go, as is usual in a Fourth of July speech, into a history of the
colonies, or the causes that produced the rupture which separated us from
Great Britain. That the colonies had suflicieut cause to justify their course
no American now doubts, and I believe no Englishman will deny. Suffice
it to say, however, that this grand declaration which my friend has just read
APPENDIX. 773
in your presence was a masterly presentation of the great principles upon
which the war was begun, which lasted for seven years and ended in the
complete overthrow of British dominion in this country and the establish-
ment of a free and independent government of free and independent States.
After a short period the bond of union between these States, called the
Articles of Confedex-ation,was found to be insufficient to meet the emergencies
of tiie times and foster the great intei'ests of llie country, because they did
not give to the central government power to carry out the objects necessary
in our complex system.
A convention was called, therefore, for the purpose of amending those
articles. After mature deliberation, they concluded to recommend to the
States of the Union a new constitution — the present Constitution of the
United States, without the amendments. That Constitution was submitted
for ratification to the respective States, and, after certain delays and reserva-
tions that 1 need not now recite, it was ratified by all the thirteen original
States. That Constitution became, therefore, the sheet-anchor and founda-
tion of a great system of constitutional government like no other known to
the world. It was an experiment hazardous at the time ; and the general
prediction of the crowned heads of Europe was that we could not live under
such a system, and that it would soon topple to the ground.
The object of our fathers was to have a confederation, or a union of the
thirteen original States, and of all other States that might afterwards be ad-
mitted into that union, with power to do all that was necessary by a general
government for the defence and general welfare, and to preserve to each
State individually all the necessary powers to conduct local self-government,
and to look after and protect all the great interests of the people of each
State. That design was very happily carried out in the Constitution brought
forth as the result of the labors of that convention.
That Constitution confers certain great powers upon Congress that were
necessary for the general government which had to take charge of the exter-
nal affairs of a great people, as well as such internal affairs as could not be
managed by each State individually. I will call attention to a few of those
powers. Power is given by the Constitution to Congress to regulate com-
merce with foreign nations among the several States and with the Indian
tribes.
To establish an uniform rule of naturalization and uniform laws on the
subject of bankruptcies, etc.
To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coins, and to fix
the standard of weights and measures.
To establish post-offices and post roads.
To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas,
and offences against the laws of nations.
To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, etc.
To raise and support armies.
To provide and maintain a navy.
To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union,
to suppress insurrections and repel invasions.
These were great fundamental j^owers delegated by the States tmder the
Constitution to the general government. And when you come to look at them
you see they are founded in wisdom. 'In each case it is a power that can
only be exercised by the general government, and could not on account of
conflicting interests be exercised by the individual States. Therefore these
great powers were delegated by the States to the general government ; and it
was authorized to execute them.
Then, in order to be guarded, for our ancestors who framed this instru-
774 APPENDIX.
ment were great and wise men, they imposed certain restrictions upon Con-
gi-ess. Two or three of the principal ones were, that : The privileges of the
writ of liaheas corpus should not be suspended, unless when in case of rebel-
lion or invasion the public safety may require it. All Englishmen ;ind all
Americans have for centuries put the highest estimate upon this great right
for the protection of individual liberty. And the right is denied to Congress
to suspend it, unless when in cases of insurrection or invasion the public
safety requires its suspension.
Then, again, it is provided that no bill of attainder or ex post facto law
shall be passed. And no title of nobility shall be granted by the United
States. There are also other restraints put upon the powers of the general
government. I do not speak now of the rights or powers reserved by the
States. But the convention in forming the Constitution conferred or' dele-
gated certain great powers to the general government. Then there are in-
hibitions to restrain its action.
Then come cei-taiu restraints upon • the powers of the States. In other
words, in delegating certain powers to the general government for the gen-
eral good and restraining the action of Congress in reference to certain other
matters, it was found necessary to negative the powers of the States to do
certain acts in conflict with the delegated powers. What consunnnate
wisdom there was in providing these checks and balances for the govern-
ment !
The Constitution provides that no State shall enter into any treaty, alli-
ance, or confederation, grant letters of marque and reprisal, coin money,
emit bills of credit, make anything but gold or silver coin a tender in pay-
ment of debts, pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing
the obligation of contracts, or grant any title of nobility. These powers are
expressly denied to the States. Again, no State sliall without the consent of
Congress levy any duty of tonnage, keep troops or ships of war, in time of
peace ; enter into any agreement or contract with any other State, or with a
foreign power; or engage in war, unless actually invaded, or in such immi-
nent danger as will rjot admit of delay. These are express inhibitions upon
the power of the States. And if you look to them, you will see that while
the convention forming the "Constitution was delegating certain powers to the
Federal Government necessary to its existence, it carefully denied the ext-rcise
of those powers to the States. The object was to have the line between the
powers of the two so well defined that tliere might be no just cause of con-
flict.
In summing up the general powers delegated to Congress this pro^■isiou
occurs : '' That Congress shall have power to make all laws which shall be
necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers and
all other powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the
United States or in any department or officer thereof." Tlierefore the Fed-
eral Government is limited in its sphere of action to the exercise of dele-
gated powers and the passage of such laws as ai-e necessary to carry into effect
the delegated powers. There it is. There is the whole extent of power
delegated by the States to the general government. As long as it moves
within that sphere and the States move within the sphere reserved by them,
there is no room for conflict, and the system works harmoniouslv and beauti-
fully.
But some of the States were not pleased with the Constitution as it came
from the hands of the convention ; and they adopted it only with the under-
standing that at an early period there were to be certain amendments defin-
ing the powers of Congress more unmistakably, and making clearer the
reserved rights of the States.
APPENDIX. 775
The ninth and tenth amendments to the Constitution which followed as
the result of that understanding, are as follows : The ninth amendment
declares that the enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not
be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment ten says: '' The powers not delegated to the United States
by the Constitution nor prohibited by it to the States are reserved to the
States respectively or to the people."
Take the Constitution then as it came from the hands of the fathers and
as amended at an early period, and there seemed to be no room tor future
trouble or conflict between the two governments. Each was to move within
its sphere and, when doing so, the system was a grand, a glorious and a
beautiful one.
Thus established upon principles of equity and justice, and founded in the
greatest wisdom, the system moved off harmoniously for many years. But
the principal disturbing element was found to be slavery. On that point
our fathers had difficulty in framing the Constitution. And in order to do
justice to all, they were careful to incorporate into it this provision :
" No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof,
escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein,
be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim
of the party to whom such labor or service may be due."
Without that provision in the Constitution it is well known it would never
have been agreed to by the slave-holding States. For a long time we had no
difficulty, but finally the anti-slavery feeling in the Xorth grew to a point
where certain of the Northern States positively refused to cany out that
essential fundamental provision of the compact of union. We of the South
felt that this was a great grievance, and we remonstrated and did all in our
power to have that provision faithfully met and carried out. While this
question was progressing in a very unsatisfactory manner, the difficulties
about slavery in the Territories reached a point where there was great excite-
ment all over the Union, and we were almost in the throes of a revolution.
At that time a sectional party was organized, and that party, with great
strength in all the Northern States, placed a candidate in the field opposed
to the extension of slavery in the Territories, which the South thought of the
utmost importance. When the election of Mr. Lincoln was an accomplished
fact, the people of the South naturally looked about for new safeguards.
We felt that the right of secession was an inherent right. That was oin*
honest opinion. We determined after consultation among the different South-
ern States that it was the only remedy left for the protection of slavery. It
may have been unwise to exercise it. On that subject there were honest
differences of opinion. As it turned out, it proved unfortunate, although if
we had not met the issue then, we would have had to do it at a little later
period, or our children would. Probably it was as well to meet it then if it
had to come. We undertook to exercise that right. The Federal Govern-
ment then in the hands of the Northern States made war upon us to compel
us to return to the Union. That war was long and bloody. On both sides
deeds of gallantry of the highest order were performed. No people ever
fought more gallantly. It was American meeting American on the bloody
field of battle. [Applause.] Suffice it to say, that on account of a vast su-
periority of numbers possessed by the people of the North, and on account
of the blockade thrown around us, after a grand and gallant struggle, we
were forced to surrender.
Then came one of the difficult periods in the hi.story of the government ;
the reconstruction period. After we surrendered the great trouble was to
determine what was our status — whether we were in the Union or out of the
776 APPENDIX.
Union. We had been told all the time of the contest that our oi"dinances of
secession were nullities ; that we were still in the Union. At the end of the
struggle, when we sent back our senators and representatives to take seats
within the halls of Congress, we found we were still out of the Union. It is
not for us to explain the inconsistencies of the government on that point.
Suffice it to say that those having the power then, as our conquerors, dictated
terms we of the South thought and still think exceedingly hard. We
differed among ourselves about the best means of meeting the emergency.
Some of us thought we saw no chance but to acquiesce in the dictation of
the conqueror. If we could not succeed when we had 500,000 of the gallant
sons of the South -in the field, armed and ready for battle, how were we to
resist further, w-hAi we had surrendered our armies and they stood with
l,2n0,000 bayonets over us? Others thought at the time we might get rid of
these measures by means of the Democratic party. We differed and differed,
I may say, ia an angry s})irit sometimes, but honestly on both sides. We
went through a hard period. I will not now attempt to enumerate all the
hardships of tlie reconstruction measures. Neither my strength nor your
patience would pei*mit it. I need oidy say that we were finally obliged to
come to the point of acquiescing in rdl the reconstruction acts of Congress
and of adopting the tln-ee constitutional amendments, tiie 13th, 14th and
15th, as dictated by our conquerors. To-day, whatever may have been our
differences of opinion in the past, we are a uuit on that point ; we have all
acquiesced. AVe liave adopted the three amendments to the Constitution as
part of the reconstruction measures, and all of us who have held office since
that time have sworn to support them.
We have even gone so lar, in our national Democratic platform at St.
Louis in 1876, as to declare that we renew our devotion to the Constitution
with the amendments. I confess, fellow-citizens, I had never felt devoted to
them ; but I took them as part of the reconstruction acts. I agreed in good
faith to adopt them, and I intend in all good faith to carry them out [Ap-
plause.] as earnestly and honestly as it' they had met my cordial approval.
[Applause.] The reconstruction acts have been enforced. "We are now
acknowledged to be back in the Union.
Now the question naturally comes up, as to our future, what is best for us
to do. Leaving behind us all these hardships, and they were great hard-
ships, burying in a common grave all our past difterences, let us come
together, attribute to each other none but proper motives, and move forward
in a common cause to a common destiny ; not only us of the South, but let
us extend a hand to our brethren of the North, and remember that while we
were enemies in war, we are bretiuen in peace. Let us clasp hands with
them across the bloody chasm and bury the bloody shirt beyond the reach of
resurrection. [Applause.]
It can do us no good to enter into any contentions about the past. Who was
right and who was wrong is not the question. None of us, I apprehend, now
desire any sort of triumph over any other patriot on account of any differ-
ences, or on account of any results. What can we best do in future to make
the South ](rosperous and happy? And what can we best do, not only for
the South, but tor the whole Union ?
One of the results of this great struggle that I have referred to was the
abolition of slavery. Yes, it is aliolished — forever abolished. It must for-
ever remain so. Another result was to settle forever the question of the right
of secession. We formerly had that right. I have no doubt of it. [Ap-
plause.] It was an inherent right. But when we undertook to exercise it, the
Government of the United States denied the right and made war upon us,
and we were obliged to go into that struggle and accept the issue, with the
APPENDIX. 777
knowledge that if we failed and our armies were conquered the right was
forever lost. [Applause.] That was the necessary result, and it is lost, and
we all accept the arbitrament of the swox'd. Let us proclaim it North and
South, in future, that we will never again attempt to exercise the right of
secession. [Applause.] Every State formerly had the right ; no one has it
now. War always settles something, and it has settled that question, and
settled it forever.
But, while that is true, it has not settled that we have lost all our states
rights, or all our constitutional rights. And my reference to certain provisions
of the Constitution was with a view to this connection. What have we lost
by the war? We have lost property and lives; but I am speaking now of
the principles of government. W'e have lost slavery with the right of seces-
sion. And we lost out of the system whatever rights were surrendered in
the 13th, lith and loth amendments. [Applause.] As far as they have
modified the original Constitution, we are bound to conform to them and we
must, as good citizens, in good faith, carry them out, whether we were
devoted to them or not. Patriotism and honor require that. Every princi-
ple of good faith requires it, and we cannot afford to do otherwise. But
neither the States of the South, nor the States of the North have lost any
more of their rights. All the rights of the States that were reserved under
the Constitution, except those enumerated, are still reserved, and we still
possess them, in all their original vigor, just as we did when the Constitution
■came from the hands of our fathers. [Applause.]
And allow me to tell you that we are not singular in claiming this. The
j)eople of New England are as little inclined to give up these rights as we
are. The Constitution of Massachusetts to-day is probabl3' as good a states
rights Constitution as any in this Union. Clay, Webster and Jackson held
one construction of the Constitution. Calhoun, that great luminary of the
South, and Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, held
another. Each school had its adherents. As the result of the war, the
Jeffersouian and Calhoun platform has been modified, and we have lost the
right of secession and the rights yielded under the three amendments. We
have lost no more. We stand, therefore, with all the rights in the Union that
■were claimed by Clay, Jackson and Webster; and if we are true to ourselves,
we will not yield them, and no section will require us to yield them. This
is not a sectional question now. Bear you in mind that New England stood
as firmly by them under Webster's interpretation as the South did. With
the modifications mentioned, therefore, the States stand to-day with all their
reserved rights. Now that the slavery question is out of the way, and their
rights are understood, I see no reason why we may not move forward in a
grand and glorious j^rogress to wealth, to power and to greatness. That is
certainly the earnest wish of the people of all sections of the Union. Let us
then bury sectional strife. Why should the people of Georgia longer be the
enemies of the people of Massachusetts ? or why are the people of South
Cai'olina the enemies of the people of Illinois? There is no reason for it.
It must not be so. If it is, we cannot prosper. We can only prosper when
we all stand by our constitutional rights and practice them in future.
And now a few words in reference to the presidential contest. I was re-
•quested to say something about the issues involved there. It is a matter of
the greatest possible importance to all of us that we preserve constitutional
government with all the rights that we now have. For the last twenty years
the government has been in the hands of the Republican party. And I do not
say that they are more corrupt than any other party that has had power that
long. But no party should be trusted with poNver for a longer period than
that in a free government, without change. Corruption and abuses will creep
778 APPENDIX.
in when there is a long reign of power and no other party comes in to over-
haul what has been done or to put checks upon it.
It was natural, my fellow-citizens, at the end of the war, as the Kepubli-
can party had been the great war party, and had been triumphantly the suc-
cessful party, that they should hold the reins of government for a number
of years to come. I would have read history in vain had I not learned that
that was to be the result. I foresaw it at the time of the surrender. "We
could but expect them to control the government for a long time. They have
held uninterrupted power till extravagances and corruptions have crept in,
as they mi<iht have done had the democracy been twenty years in power.
And I think it is the interest of the whole people of the United States to
have a change. We should have an overhauling once in a while. And now
I think is the time for it. [Applause.]
I have already said that a new element has been introduced into the body
politic. The slaves were not only set free and slavery forever abolished, but
as part of the reconstruction measures, those who were formerly slaves were
made our fellow-citizens and placed by our sides with the ballot in their
hands. It was a fearful experiment. I so regarded it at that time. But
the conquering power dictated it, and there was no other alternative. It has
in practice worked better, I confess, than I anticipated, and probably worse
as a party measure, than the party in power anticipated.
I am on record in speeches I made in 1868, as saying that in ten or fifteen
years the Republicans of New England would regret that they gave the col-
ored man the ballot. The fourteenth amendment provides that if there is
any race or class of people (I do not quote the exact language) denied the
elective franchise, they shall not be counted among our representative popu-
lation. Therefore if we do not give the colored race the vote, none of them
would be counted in making up the representative population of the South.
The colored race counted gives thirty odd votes in Congress and a like num-
ber in the electoral college.
In 1876 I was invited by the Democratic executive committee of the Union
to aid in looking after a fair count in Florida. While there I twitted some
of the gentlemen on the Republican side, saying it would not have been
necessary for them to be there trying to get the vote of the State by unfair
means, if they had not given the coloi'ed man the ballot. " Without it hi the
count," said 1, "you would have had thirty majority and your candidate
would have been overwhelmingly elected." One of them, using an expletive
that I will not repeat, said, " Yes, the negro is a failure, and we are sorry
that we did it." still using expletives. [Laughter and applause.]
It is, therefore, a source of power to us. They have acted well as an
uneducated race, given the ballot under such circumstances. They have done
probably better than any other race would have done. They are orderly
now ; and go to the polls and vote by our sides, and many of them for our
candidates. By counting them we have this great additional strength that
we would not otherwise have possessed. And whenever any constitutional
amendment is proposed by the people of the Nortli to take back the ballot
from the colored man you will find the democracy of the whole South rally-
ing to the colored man. He gives us power and he shall ever exercise the
elective franchise ! [Great applause.] He shall no more be a slave ; and he
shall evermore be a voter. [Applause.] We were apprehensive of danger
when they were misleading the colored people, but it has worked out to their
advantage and to ours. It is the interest of the colored man to stand by us ;
and it is our interest to stand by him. We were raised together. We
played together in boyhood. We got along finely together; why should
either race then abandon the other? Why should he run off after strangers?
APPENDIX. 779
It is better for us to act together, deal justly, and all be fellow-citizens together^
and do everything in our power to build up this great section of ours, to
develop its resources, and to make it rich and powerful.
In this connection allow me to say that there is a national obligation which
arises here. By the abolition of slavery and the enfranchisement of the col-
ored man, the whole race were made citizens. Now that they are citizens it
is our interest and duty to make them the best citizens in our power. We
ought to do all we can to make them good citizens. And to do that we must
educate their children, or help to do it. We have most of the property. The
taxation falls mostly upon us. The whole country is poor ; I am willing at
all times to submit to my part of the burden, to raise whatever sum is nec-
essary to educate the children of the whole State. [Applause.] But I say
this burden ought not to be pat upon the property and tbe people of the
South alone. The Northern States required abolition. The interest of the
Union they said required it. Then if it was the interest of the Union to turn
loose these four millions of people and absolve them from slavery and make
them citizens, it is the interest of the whole Union now to help them to be
good citizens — not only is it the interest but the solemn duty and obligation
of the Union. Therefore, I say their children ought to be educated, not out
of our tax or our property alone, but out of the property of the Union. And
in this connection allow me to say, as I see my friend, Dr. Orr, the State
school commissioner, present, that he was in a convention of school commis-
sioners in which most of the Northern States were represented, and they
agreed to recommend a measure to Congress, and that measure is now pend-
ing there, to appropriate the proceeds of the public lands in future to the
education of the mass of the people. [Applause.] What better u-^e could
ever be made of it ? None, none ! Take the proceeds of the public lands,
then, divide them among the States in proportion to the number who are
illiterate, and let us have it as an educational fund, and we will soon make
an intelligent people. We will soon educate not onlj^ our white children who
have had no such advantage, but we will educate the colored people, and we
will advance the cause of prosperity and progress, not only in the South, but
all over the North ! What could be better ?
You tell me that it costs money to educate the people. I know it. But I
tell you that you will never find an enlightened, educated people who do not
make money. If you want to get rich and powerful, educate the whole mass
of your people.
Take Prussia as an instance. Napoleon the First swept over that country
like a tornado, and scattered everything to ruin. After his fall, Prussia met
to look into her system and devise means to build up the country. The
wise counsels of the professors and teachers prevailed ; and the King deter-
mined to educate the whole people. Theysa'd to a man who would not send
his son to school: "You are responsible for bringing this human being into
existence.. You have no right, sii", to raise him in ignorance and vice, so that
he will become a pest to society. But you shall send him to school. He
shall have reasonable opportunities." The law so required and what has
been the result? That little kingdom that the great conqueror swept over
almost without resistance, has since risen to be one of the first powers upon
the earth, and has humbled his successor and driven him from the throne.
Why was it that the Prussians were more powerful than the French in the
late struggle? Military men assign many reasons. The universities of
France are of as high order as those of Germany. But the mass of the peo-
ple of France are not educated as in Germany. Hence, in that great contest
the French people did not have the benefit of all the powerful intellect of
France developed for the struggle. Germany did. Under her system, when
780 APPENDIX.
a poor boy is found mentally to possess a glittering diamond, which it is
only necessary to polish that it may sparlcle, he is taken up and educated
accordingly. If he develops a genius for chemistry, they put him through
the university and make him a chemist of the highest order. If another is
found adapted to the military', they give him every advantage to make him
a grand military commander. If he has capacity for medicine, he is thus
educated to a high degree for that profession. So, if another is found
adapted to law, or another to architecture. And so on. And what has been
the result? When the great struggle 'began, Prussia had all her brightest
jewels in intellect polished. She had a man ready for every position, and
competent for every duty. Whenever you educate the whole American peo-
ple, all the bright-eyed boys up in these mountains and down in the wire-
grass who to-day may be wholly unconscious of their powers, with the
opportunities they have at school, will soon begin to find that they have men-
taf powers, and you cannot keep them down. And when educated the gov-
ernment will get the benefit of this power.
I said soon after the war, and have never taken it back, that if I were
dictator of Georgia, I would issue a million of dollars in bonds, put them in
the treasury of Georgia and draw the interest annually for your University
and its branches. I would make, in addition to the branches we already
have, two more, one in the eastern and one in the western part of the State.
I would make the University all that could be required, and then advance the
public schools till all these bright jewels could be seen by their sparkling.
We would then know how to find them. I w-ould put them forward in the
schools and in the Universities; and what do you think would be the result
within a few years V Talk a,bout the expense — seventy thousand dollars per
annum— what is it? Why not a mill on the dollar of our taxable property.
Soon it will be only half a mill. Why not pay it to promote the education
of our people and pioduce such a result? Nothing could be wiser ; nothing
could redound so to the wealth, prosperity and glory of Georgia. You would
draw to you first the youth of adjoining States; then, as you build up higher
and higher, they would come in all around from Virginia to Texas, and from
the Ohio to the Atlantic. You would find youths of every State at your Uni-
versity spending not thousands, but hundreds of thousands of dollars a year
in Georgia, and thus advancing the wealth and prosperity of our State. I
say. tiien, let us educate the mass of our people, and let us see to it the col-
ored man lias as fair a chance as the white man. That was our compact
with them at tiie end of the war, when we established our school system and
a collei^e for each race. Let it be carried out in the utmost good faith.
Well, you may ask what is best for us to do at the present time in our
national affairs."^ In my honest opinion the best course to pursue to preserve
constitutional government, the rights of the States and the liberties of the
people, and to develop our interest, is to have a change of administration and
put'such a man as General Hancock in power at the head of the government.
[Applause.] I say it in no partisan sense. I believe that the interest of this
whole country requires it. And you have this great point to encourage you.
During the reconstruction period, when military power was dominant here,
when men were sent down clothed with arbitrary power, holding the desti-
nies of life and death in their hands, General Plancock was seiit with that
power to New Orleans to exercise it in Louisiana and Texas. What was the
result ? While there clothed with all the plenitude of military power, with
the right under t])e law to do just as he pleased in this matter, subject only
to the will of the President, who left everything to him, he refused to per-
mit the supreme power to be military ; but placed the civil over the military.
[Applause.] Can you not trust a man in times like these, who could act thus
in times like those '? I think you may. [Applause.]
INDEX.
Abbott & Bro., 483.
Abolition Slavery, 414.
Agriculture Dept., 495.
Akerman, A. T., 54.
Akin, W., 52, 108, 109, 440.
Alabama, 168, 172, 173, 184,
205, 320, 432.
Ala. & Chat. R. R , 467.
Alexander, J. K., 52, 65, 66.
Alexander, P. W., 439.
Alexander, T. W., 52.
Allen, A. A., 37.
Allen, T , 484.
Amendment, 421, 435, 443,
444, 462.
Anderson, J. W., 102.
Anderson, Major, 203.
Andrew, J. O., 49.
Andrews, G., 80, 81, 4'56.
Anthony, S., 49.
Area of State, 4.
Area of C. S., 207.
Area of U. S., 207.
Argument in Florida, 507.
Arkansas, 1 72, 1 9 7, 200, 206,
432.
Arms Seizure, 183.
Arnold, W., 49.
Atlanta, 320.
Avery, W. L., 470.
Axson, I., 50.
Bacon, I. T., 52.
Bacon, K. I., 52.
Bailey, D. J., 38, 82, 102.
Bailey, S. T., 53, 64.
Bainbridge, C. & C. K. R.,
467.
Baker, Gen,, 235.
Baker, J. S., 49.
Ball, J. M., 483.
Bank Cases, 61.
Banks, 119-128.
Banks, H., 483.
Barnett, S., 498.
Barney, J. W., 52.
Barney, T. I., 52.
Bartlett, G. T., 54.
Bartow, F. S., 53, 179, 185,
224.
Beauregard, Gen., 203, 218,
222, 224.
Bee, Gen. B., 224.
Bell, H. P., 186.
Beuning, H L., 39, 60, 61.
Berrien, I. W. M., 52.
Berrien, J. M., 43, 44, 52,
105.
Berrien, T. M., 52.
Bigham, B. H., .54.
Billups, J. A., 54.
Black John, 115.
Blair, F. P., 446.
Bleckley, L. E., 54.
Blockade, 237.
Blodgett, Foster, 481, 483.
Bonds, State, 251, 465.
Bonham, Gen., 224.
Boring, J., 49.
Boundaries of State, 5.
Bower, I. E., 52.
Boynton, .Jas. S., 589.
Bragg, Gen., 211.
Brantley, W. T., 49.
Breckenridge, J. C, 92,198.
Broadhead, Jas. A., 446.
Brothers, Georgia, 51,52.
Brown, Charles M., 99, 569.
Brown, Elijah A., 99.
Brown, Franklin P., 100.
Brown, J. R., 52, 97.
Brown, Joseph E , 37, 52,
67, 68, 69, 70, 88, 89, 91,
138, 220, 257, 259, 325,
330, 344, 348, 355, 359,
360, 364, 371, 387, 388,
392, 397, 398, 400, 403,
408, 409, 425, 428, 436,
454, 469, 480, 481, 484,
488, 501, 507, 521, 524,
529, 531, 561, 562, 564,
586, 591.
Brown, Jos. M., 99.
Brown, Julius L., 99, 488.
Brown, Mackey, 95.
Brown, Sallie, 99.
Brunswick & Albany R. R.,
468.
Buchanan, H., 54.
Buchanan, Pres., 198.
Buckner, Gen. S. B., 232.
Bull, 0. A., 37.
Bull Run, 222.
Bullock, R. B., 146, 443,
444, 451, 453, 459, 463,
467, 470, 473, 475, 481,
485.
Burch, R. S., 54.
Butler, D. E., 439.
Butler, Gen., 217.
Cabaniss, E. C, 52.
Cabbages, 313.
Calhoun Academy, 96.
Calhoun, J. M., 52.
Cameron, S., 484.
Campbell, D. C, 1 86.
Campbell, D. G., 42, 59.
Campbell, J. H., 49.
Candler, M. A., 315.
Capers, Gen., 246, 250.
Cartersville & Van Wert R.
R., 468.
Celia, 315.
Cemeteries, 17.
Central R. R., 252, 484.
Chandler, A., 49.
Chandler, T., 153.
Chappell, A. H., 53, 64,
440.
Charities, 18, 568.
Charleston Mercury, 236.
Charlton, R. M., 53.
Chastain, E. W., 53.
Cheatham, Gen. F., 233.
Cherokee R. R., 468.
Chinese, 562.
Chisholm, E. J) , 54, 102.
Choice, Wm. A., 116.
Christian Sabbath, 160.
Church, A., 49.
Churches, 16.
Cities, 13, 14.
Civil Service, 562.
Clark, Gov. John, 34, 38.
Clark, R. H., 54, 102, 160.
Clark, W. W., 53.
Clayton, W. W., 102.
Cleghorn, Ca]it., 179.
Climate of State, 8.
•782
INDEX.
Clinch, D. L., 34.
Cobb, H., 39, 43, 51, 66, 68,
71, 72, 76, 78, 80, 83, 91,
105, 131, 135, 185, 187,
194,424,448. '
Cobb T. 11. II., 67, 68, 160,
185.
Cobb, T. W., 42, 59.
Cochran, A. E., 39, 102.
Code of Ga., 159.
Cole, E. W., 484.
Colfax, S., 447.
Colinsworth, J., 49.
Collards, 315.
Colleges, 19, 20, 21.
Colley, J., 49.
Collier, J., 52, 483.
Colquitt, Alfred H., 497,
499, 521, 522.
Colquitt, P., 219.
Colquitt, W.T., 43, 44, 71,
73.
Common Schools, 146.
Cone, F. H., 43, 64.
Cone, P., 55.
Confederate Constitution,
190, 194,
Confederacy, 181.
Congress, Prov., 184, 190.
Conkling, Senator, 525,
564.
Conlev,B., 464, 475.
Connally.Mary V., 99.
Conscription, 249, 355.
Constitution of State, 412,
441,497.
Constitutionalist, 86.
Contracts, 412.
ControversA", Brown and
Davis, 261, 355.
Convention, State, 71, 104,
411, 434, 439, 443, 449,
497.
Cook, G., 484.
Cook, Phil., 439.
Cooper, M. A., 34, 55, 82,
92.
Correspondence, 320, 355,
398
Cotton Exposition, 520.
Cotton Money, 562.
Counties of State, 4.
Cow, 313.
Cowart, 11. J., 53
Crawford, G. W., 34, 39,
77, 103, 185.
Crawford, M. J., 40, 194.
Crawford, N. M , 49.
Crawford, W. H., 40, 42,
59, 95.
Crittenden, J. C, 198.
Crook, L W., 54.
Culpepper, C , 48.
Gumming, H. H., 52.
Gumming, William, 52.
Gumming, J. B., 464, 496.
Currencv Bonds, 473.
Cuyler K. R , 55, 252.
Dabney, W. H., 52.
Dade Coal Co., 488, 489,
503.
Daniel, W.C, 186.
Davis, J., 49, 187, 217, 227,
236, 257, 259, 267, 312,
318, 355, 359, 360, 365,
371, 388, 392, 436.
Dawson, A. H. H., 53.
Dawson, J. E., 49.
Dawson, W. C., 34, 43, 63.
Debt, National, 562.
Debt, War, 412.
DeGraffenreid, B., 52.
DeGraffeureid, W. K., 52.
Delano, J. S., 484.
Delaware, 186, 197.
DeLvon, L. S., 53.
Dinsmore, W. B., 484.
Dobbins, M. G., 483.
Dobbins, W. B., 483.
Dodd, P., 483.
Donation to State Univer-
sity, 577.
Doolv, J. M., 42, 59.
Dougherty, C, .34, 43, 51.
Doughertv, Ti-, 51.
Dougherty, W., 51, 60, 61.
Douglass, E. L., 52.
Doualass, M., 52.
Doyall, L. T., 54.
Duncan, J. P., 50.
Dunnegan, J., 55.
Earlv, Gen., 320.
Edam, S. C, 52.
Education, 146, 562.
Eliun, W. D., 52.
Elliott, S., 49.
Elzey, A., 182.
Embas.'iv to England, 196.
Estill, J H., 578.
Evans, Gen., 234.
Evans, J. E., 49.
Exdininer, Richmond, 236.
Ezzard, Wm., 53.
Fannin, I., 52.
Featlierston, L. II., 53.
Ferrell, B. C, 53, 102.
Few, I., 49.
Fielder, Herbert, 313, 495.
Fleming, W. B,, 37, 53.
Florida, 172, 173, 184, 206>
506.
Floyd, Gen. J. B., 218.
Floyd, J. 1,51.
Floyd, S., 51.
Forces, State, 245, 258,
263.
Forrest, Gen., 320.
Forsyth, Jno., 38, 42, 95.
Fort, Moses, 48.
Fort Pickens, 202, 210.
Fort Pula.ski, 178.
Fort Sumter, 185, 202, 210.
Foster, A. G., 63.
Foster, I. R., 25.5, 312, 317,
418.
Foster, N G , 40, 51.
Fouclie, S., 55.
Fourteenth Amendment,
420, 435, 443, 462.
Fullarton, A , 398, 399, 403,
405, 408.
Furlow, T. M., 109, 439.
Gardner, J., 55, 86.
Gartrell, J. 0., 52.
Gartrell, L. J., 43, 52, 53,
102.
Geologist, State, 158, 496.
Georgia, 30, 320, 432.
Georgia Code, 159.
Georgia Hospital Associa-
tion, 307.
Gibson, O. C., 51.
Gibson, W., 51.
Gilmer, G. R., 38.
Glenn, J. W., 49.
Glenn, L. J., 53, 439.
Gold Bonds, 474.
Gor(^on, John B., 443, 497,
520.
Gould, W. T., 53.
Graham, J., 439.
Grant, Gen., 431, 444, 447,
453.
Grant, J. T., 484, 488.
Grant, W. D., 488.
Great Seal of State, 486.
Greeley, Horace, 451.
Green, II., 54.
Gresham, J. 1., 53, 439.
Gresham, Rev. Jos., 98.
Guerry, T. L., 55, 440.
Hall, G. A., 54.
Hall, J. I., 466.
Hall, R. S., 52.
Hall, Sam.. .52, 54, 186.
Hamniel, A., 59.
Hammond, A. W., 53.
Hammond, D. F., 37.
INDEX.
783
Hansen, A. H., 51.
Hansell, A. J., 51, 54.
Haralson, H. A., 43,45, 82.
Hardee, Gen., 232.
Hardeman, R. V., 37.
Hardeman, T., 54, 439.
Harden, E. J, 531.
Harper, R. G., 67.
Harris, I. L., 53.
Harris, J. L , 54.
Harris, J. V., 59.
Harris, J. W., 55.
Harris, W. A., 54.
Harris, W. G., 43.
Harrison, B. K., 53.
Harrison, >G. P., 102, 247,
250.
Harwell, J. M., 483.
Hawkins, W. A., 54.
Health of State, 9.
Henderson, J., 49.
Henderson, T. J., 495.
Hester, R., 54.
Hightower, T. J., 483.
Hill, B., 52.
Hill, B. H., 67, 69, 81, 85,
88, 94, 109, 117, 185,
424, 436, 439, 440, 448,
484,497, 564, 591.
Hill, E. Y., 34, 51, 102.
Hill, Joshua, 51, 109, 461,
485.
Hillyer, J., 43, 53.
Hillyer, S. G., 49.
Holmes, A. T., 49.
Holt, H., 63.
Holt, W. S., 484.
Holt, W. W., 37.
Hood, Gen., 318, 320.
Hospital Association, 307.
Howard, T. C, 55, 102.
Hoyt, S. B., 4S3.
Hudson, C. B., 480, 501.
Huger, Gen., 217.
Hughes, D., 439.
Hull, H., 43.
Hull, W. H., 53, 66.
Hutchings, N. L., 52.
Indians, 562.
Ingram, P., 54.
Internal improvements,
141,145.
Investigation, 417, 500.
Irvine, C. M., 49.
Irwin, D., 52, 106, 160, 443.
Iverson, A., 39, 63, 79.
Jackson, H. R., 53, 66, 67,
182, 183, 245, 250, 530,
560.
Jackson, Jas., 37, 577.
Jackson, Jos., 43.
Jackson, Stonewall, 224.
Jamison, S. Y., 53.
Janes, T. P., 495.
Jenkins, C. J., 47, 72, 75,
76, 77, 78, 411,415,416,
420, 424, 432, 456, 472,
473,496, 591.
Johnson, H. V., 38, 47, 71,
74, 76,77,78, 80, 83, 119,
131, 132, 135, 141, 156,
411, 417, 424, 438, 440,
590.
Johnson, J., 63, 410, 413,
414, 416, 417.
Johnson, Presid ent, 3 1 1 ,41 0,
416, 444.
Johnson, R. M., 53.
Johnson, W. B.,484.
Johnston, Gen. A. S., 232.
Johnston, Gen. J. E., 218,
222,318, 320.
Jones, C. C. Jr., 497.
Jones, J., 49.
Jones, J. A., 51, .54, 56,102.
Jones, J. J., 54.
Jones, S., 51, 57, 61, 63.
Jordan, C. S., 417.
Kenan, A. H., 53, 102, 185.
Kenan, 0. H , 56.
Kentucky, 168, 172, 197,
200.
Key, C, 49.
Kiddoo, D. H., 39.
Kimball, H. I., 467, 473,
484.
King, J. P., 55, 484.
King, T. B., 53.
King, Wm., 310.
Knight, N. B., 54.
Know Nothings, 79, 81,456.
Kollock, H., 49.
Lamar, G. B., 253,
Lamar, H. G., 53, 86.
Lamar, L. Q. C, 67, 68.
Lamar, Senator, 564.
Lane, C. W., 50.
Latham, T. A., 56, 57.
Law, J., 53.
Law, W., .53.
Lawton, A. R.,53, 179, 250,
528, 561.
Lawton, W. J., 102.
Lease, State Road, 480, 501.
Lee, Gen. R. E., 218, 530.
Leesburg battle, 234.
, Legislature, 459.
I Lester, G. N., 52.
Lester, P., 52.
Letcher, Gov., 220.
Letters, 319, 325, 345, 348,
355, 359, 360, 365, 371,
388, 392, 398, 400, 403,
405, 447, 502,570, 578.
Leverett, W., 96.
Lewis, D. W., 53.
Lewis, Dr. J. W., 98, 132,
141.
Lewis, M. W., 54.
Ley den. A., 483.
Lincoln, Pres., 217, 320,
410, 445.
Liquor, 238.
Little, Dr. Geo., 496.
Lloyd, T. E., 53.
Lochrane, 0. A., 54, 417.
Longstreet, A. B., 49.
Longstreet, Gen. J., 224.
Losses, war, 308.
Louisiana, 172, 173, 186,
206.
Love, P. E., 37, 102.
Lovell, J. M., 53.
Lumpkin, J. H.,37, 40, 73,
86, 87.
Lumpkin, W., 38, 41.
Lyon, Gen., 234.
Lyon, J., 52.
Lvon, J. R., 54.
Lyon, R. F., 52.
Mabry, C. W., 54.
Macon & Brunswick R. R.,
472. •
i\Iacon & Western R. R.,
484.
Magruder, Gen. J. B., 217.
Mahone, Senator, 562, 564.
Malory, C. D., 49.
Manassas, 226.
Mann, A. T., 49.
Manufactories, 15.
Maryland, 172, 186, 197,
200, 320.
Mason & Slidell, 227.
May, B., 484.
McAllister, M. H., 34, 76.
McCane, R. W., 54.
McClellan, Gen., 217, 219,
224.
McCulloch, Gen. B., 234.
McDonald, C. J., 34, 37, 39,
71, 72, 73,78, 79, 81,105.
McDougald, A., 51, 63.
McDougald, D., 51, 63.
McDowell, Gen., 217.
Mcintosh, L. H., 255.
Mclntyre, A. T., 54.
McKay H. S,, 53, 487.
784
INDEX.
McKinlev,C. G., 51.
McKiulev, E. D., 51.
McKinley, W., 51.
McLester, W. W., 439.
McMillan, G., 466.
McMillan, K., 53.
McNaught, Wm., 483.
Meade, Gen., 433, 444.
Means, A , 49.
Mell, P. H., 49.
Mercer, J., 59.
Mercer, G. A, 439.
Mercuri/, Charleston. 236.
Meriwether, J. A., 43, 47.
Merrell, H. F., 51.
Merrell, W. W., 51.
Message, 112,115,117,119,
121, 123, 128, 135, 136,
138, 143, 147, 152, 168,
161, 164, 168, 245, 249,
250. 253, 255, 263, 265,
268, 271, 306, 309, 416,
421, 475.
Mexican pension speech,
525.
Military administration,
162
Milledge, J., 53.
Milledgeville,312.
Miller, A. J, 43, 46, 47, 102.
Miller, Dr. H. V.M.,54, 81,
461, 577.
Milner, J., 53.
Minerals, 10.
Mississippi, 168, 172, 173,
184, 186, 206,320,432.
Missouri, 172, 197, 200,206.
Mitchell, Wm. M , 577.
Mobley, J. M., 54.
Moore, A. B., 185.
Morgan, H., 52.
Morgan, J. B., 54.
Morgan, Gov., 183.
Morgan, Gen. J. 11., 320.
Mormons, 562.
Morrill, W. C, 484, 488.
Morris, T., 54.
Moselv, Wm., 49.
Murpiiv, C, 52, 102.
Myers,' E. IL, 49.
Nelson, Gen., 234.
Netherknd, G. M., 480, 501.
Neufville, E., 49.
Newspapers, 22.
Nicoll, J. C.,36.
Nisbet, E. A., 52, 61, 62,63,
64,108, 109, 174, 185.
Nisbet, J. A., 52.
North Carolina, 172, 186,
197, 200, 206, 320, 432.
North Eastern R. R., 500.
Norwood, Thos. M., 527.
Nunnally, A. D., 480, 482,
501.
Nutting, C. A., 484.
Oliver, B., 54.
Ordinance for contracts,
412.
Ordinance war debt, 412.
Ordinance of Secession,
174,411.
Ormond, J., 483.
Orr, J. L., 185.
Overby, B. H., 53, 80.
Owens, G. S., 52.
Owens, J. W., 52.
Pardon power, 113.
Parks, W. J., 49.
Parole, 311.
Parties iu State, 33.
Patterson, Gen., 222.
Peace, 195, 198.
Peeples, C, 53.
Pennsylvania, 320.
Perkins, W. C, 52.
Peters, R., 484.
Pettus,J. Q., 186.
Phillips, C. D., 52.
Phillips, G. D., 55.
Phillips, Wra.,52, 182, 245,
246.
Pickens, F. W., 185.
Pierce, G. F., 59, 480,. 501.
Pierce, L.,49.
Pillow, Gen. G. J., 232.
Piuchard, J. S., 53.
Plant, II. B , 484.
Poe, W., 53.
Polk. Gen. L., 233.
Poor, The. 242.
Pope, A., 54
Pope, Gen. .T., 432, 444.
Population of State, 4, 205.
Pottle, E. H., 52, 439.
Powers, A. P., 38.
Price, Gen. S., 233.
Pringle, J. A., 54.
Printup, D. S., 54, 117.
Productions of State, 9.
Public men of Georgia,' 31.
Pulaski, Fort, 178.
Purse, T., 102.
Railroads, 11, 12, 141, 145.
Railroad Commissioners,
498.
Ramsay, J. N., 43, 54, 102,
219.
Ray, J., 56, 59.
Recognition, 196.
Reconstruction, 410, 420,
428
Reese, Aug., 52, 443.
Reese, Wm. M , 52, 480,
501.
Renneau. R., 49.
Report Bond Committee,
470.
Resolution, 24, 95, 440, 450,
483.
Retrenchment, 161.
Review of Parties, 455.
Rice, G. D , 52.
Rice, J. H., 52,
Rice, Sally, 95.
Richardson, C. B., 439.
Richmond Examvicr, 236.
Rising Fawn Iron Co., 489.
Rivers of State, 6.
Rockwell, W. S., 53.
Roll of Troops, 257.
Rosecrans, Gen., 217, 219.
Ruger, Gen., 432.
Rutherford, J., 53.
Sabbath, Christian, 1 60,
239.
Saffold, T. P., 52, 417.
Sanders, B. M., 49.
Sanford, J. W. A., 186. ^
Salt, 241.
Sav.,FIa. & W. R. R., 499.
Schley, G., 52.
SchleV, J . 52.
SchleV, W., 40, 52.
Schools, 19, 20.
Schools, Common, 146.
Scott, Dunlap, 480.
Scott, Gen., 211, 217.
Scott, T. A., 484.
Screven, Capt., 179.
Scrutchins, T., 483.
Seago, A. K., 483.
Secession, 170, 174, 177,
199, 411,424.
Seddon, Jas. A., 319,325,
330, 345-348.
Seizure Arms, 183.
Semraes, P. J., 180, 245,
246.
Senator J. E. Brown, 524.
Seward, J. L , 41, 45.
Seward, W 11,413.
Shackelford, A. J)., 102.
Sherman, Gen., 310, 318,
320.
Shorter, E. S., 42.
Shorter, J. G., 185.
Silver Question, 562.
Simmons, J. P , 54.
INDEX.
785
Simmons, Thomas J., 466.
Simms, R., 5.3.
Slavery, 71, 230, 414.
Smith, Gen. G. W., 318.
Smith, J. M., 54.
Smith, Gen. Kirby, 223,320.
Smith, L. B,, 54.
Smith, Gov., 463, 464, 495,
498.
Societies, 22, 23.
Soil of State, 9.
South Carolina, 168, 172,
184, 185, 186, 200, 206,
320, 432.
South Ga. & Fla. R. R., 472,
Southern R. R. and Steam-
ship Association, 490.
Southwestern R. R., 484.
Spaulding, R., 102.
Spear, A. M., 54.
Spear, E., 50, 560.
Speeches, 525, 529, 560,
562.
Speer, Emory, 560.
Spurlock, J. M., 102.
Stafford, S. S.,54.
Stark, J. H., 37.
Starnes, E., 53.
State Bonds, 250.
State Convention, 71
State Forces, 245, 256.
State Geologist, 158.
State Road, 88.
State University, 152, 156,
577, 586.
Steel, J. D., 102.
Stell, J. D., 55
Stephens, A. H.,39, 47, 51,
64, 71,80,82,83,92,100,
185, 236, 417 424, 450,
452, 484, 497, 589.
Stephens, L., 51, 67, 68, 102,
449, 452.
Stewart, J. A., 439.
Stocks, T., 55.
Stone, Gen., 234.
Sturgis, J., 63.
Styles, W. H., 38, 86, 87.
Sumter, Fort, 185.
Supplement, 495.
Supreme Court, 61, 62.
Talmage, S. K., 49.
Tanner, W. J.; 483.
Tariff, 562, 565.
Tatnall, Com., 184.
50
Taylor, Gen. Dick,312,316.
Tak, War, 263.
Temperance, 80.
Tennessee. 168, 172, 186,
197, 200, 206, 248, 320.
Terry, Gen , 433, 462.
Texas, 168, 172, 173, 186,
432.
Thomas, G. E., 63.
Thomas, T. W., 37, 53.
Thompson, Gen. .Jeff., 233.
Thornton, B. E , 54.
Thornton, V., 49.
ThoAvard, S. P , 54.
Tidwell, M. M., 54.
Tilden-Haves Election,5 .
Timber of "State, 10
Toombs, R., 39,57, 71, 80,
82, 105, 184, 229, 316,
318,424, 448, 587, 591.
Towns, 14.
Towns, G. W., 34, 38, 43,
77, 102, 103, 104, 131.
Tracy, E. D., 51, 52.
Tracy, P., 51, 52.
Trammell, L. N., 464, 498.
Transfer Troops, 181,248,
249.
Treasury Notes, 253.
Trippe,"'R. P., 40, .53,102.
Trippe, T. H., 37.
Troops, 208, 256.
Troup, G. M., 34, 38, 75.
Tucker, H. H., 49.
Tucker, J. A., 53.
Turner, A., 49.
Tyler, Jno , 198.
Underwood, J. W. H., 53,
65.
Underwood, W. H , 56, 59.
University of Georgia, 152,
156, 577, 569.
Vason, D. H., 52.
Vason, W. J., 186.
Veto Power, 111, 115, 117,
121, 128.
Virginia, 168, 172, 197, 200,
217, 320, 432.
Vote on Secession, 174,177.
Vote for U. S. Senator, 561.
Waddell, I, 49.
Waitzf elder & Co., 419, 484.
Walker, D. A., 465.
Walker Iron & Coal Co.,
503.
Walker, Gen. W. H. T.,
245, 250.
Wallace, Campbell, 498.
Wallace, J. R.,483.
Wallace, W. S , 54.
Walters, W. T., 484.
War Contracts, 412.
War Debt, 412.
War Losses, 308.
War Tax, 263.
Ward, J. E., 53.
Warner, H., 39, 52, 81, 86,
87, 487, 591.
Warner, J C, 489.
Warner, 0., 52, 54.
Warren, Eli, 48, 51.
Warren, Lott, 48,51.
Water Power of State, 7.
Wayne, Gen., 246, 314, 316.
Wayne, J M., 36.
Wellborn, M. J., 63.
West Virginia, 206.
Western Atlantic R. R.,
88, 103, 130, 47.3, 480,
490, 501, 503.
Whitaker, J. 1,255,418.
White, A. J., 483.
White, C, 59.
White, T. W., 186.
Whittle, L. N., 588.
Williams, C. J., 180.
Williams, H., 53.
Williams, Gen J. S., 234.
Willinghara, C. H. C, 439.
Wilson, Gen, 311.
Wilson, J. S., 49.
Wingfield, J., 52.
Wofford, W. B., 55, 102.
Wofford, W. T., 54
Worrell, B. S., 51.
Worrell, E. H., 38, 51,102.
Worrell, J., 51.
Wright, A , 49.
Wright, Ambrose R., 54.
Wright, Augustus R., 53,
65, 185, 186, 194.
Wright, G. J., 51.
Wright, W. F., 51.
Wyley, B. F., 483.
Yancey, W. L., 196.
Zollicoffer, Gen., 232.
Zouave, 214.